TravelStream™ news feed for member tone_n_erin on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/tone_n_erin en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Wed, 17 Jun 2009 01:53:50 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tone_n_erin/1/1245217905/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tone_n_erin/1/1245217905/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tone_n_erin/1/1245217905/tpod.html Wed, 17 Jun 2009 01:53:50 -0400 Our Adventures in South East Asia and beyond.

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Vientiane, Lao Peoples Dem Rep

We decided to cross into Laos from Vietnam over the Lao Boh border (right at the old DMZ in Vietnam at the North and South divide). We'd heard too many horror stories about the border crossings up North, so we opted for the shortest and least problematic crossing.  Everything worked out great as is just so happened that friends that we had met back in Indonesia (in Sumatra) were in the first town we arrived at in Laos.  Savanaket is the third largest city in Laos, so Erin and I expected another big Asian city full of hustle and bustle, but not so!  It was like a ghost town.  You could almost hear crickets and see tumble weeds blowing through the streets.  We found an internet café and 'skype’ called our Aussie friends, Roh and Rob.  We ate dinner with them that night by the Mekong River.  They persuaded us to go down south with them, which was not our original plan, but that’s half the fun of traveling on an open schedule and being flexible enough to change your plans on a whim.  So the next day we caught a bus six hours south to a town called Pakse.  Once there, we decided to rent motorbikes and take a tour around the Bolaven Plateau.  We stored our large backpacks at a guest house and just took our day packs with enough to survive for a couple of days.  It was great fun.  We went to Champasak (an old Khmer temple ruin), saw some spectacular waterfalls, and stayed in some great hotels off the tourist beaten trail.  The highlight was playing in a waterfall with a bunch of local kids.  They had built bamboo rafts to float around the pool at the bottom of the falls.  All the kids were jumping on and off (Roh and I were also throwing them off :-) as they steered the rafts closer to the strongest part of the falls.  You had to basically close your eyes and hang on for dear life as 10 tons of water tumbled on top of you.  I think that both Erin and Rob lost their bikini tops as well, which definitely made them a hit with the locals… LoL! After Pakse we caught another bus and boat to Si Phan Don (The Four Thousand Islands) on the Mekong.  We stayed on Don Khon for a couple of days first.  There we met ‘Papa’, the owner of the hotel we were staying at.  Papa was quite a character.  I don’t think we ever saw him without a bottle of Lao Lao (home brew whiskey) in his hand.  He referred to himself as ‘Papa doctor’ and was insistent that Lao Lao was the cure for anything and everything.  So, if you’d just woken up in the morning and were still quite tired………. well……..time for Lao Lao!  Time seems to stand still in Si Phan Don.  Everything moved very slowly, including us.  We did rent bicycles the one day and cruised around to Tat Somphamit (very dramatic and beautiful waterfalls), and drove along the first and only railway line in all of Laos.  Other than that it was all about relaxing.  We decided one day that we’d done enough relaxing on Don Khon and that it was time to go and relax over on Don Det (the adjacent island).  Relaxing on Don Det was much better.  We had hammocks at our guest house there, which makes the world of difference!  Actually, that place turned out to be our cheapest accommodation is Asia to date ($2/night).  After five days in Si Phan Don we bid farewell to our good friends Roh and Rob as their Laos visa’s had expired and they were leaving for Cambodia.  It was so much fun traveling with them!  Before leaving Roh and Rob, we picked their brains for the best places to visit in Laos as they had spent the last two months there.  Rob was great.  She marked up our LP (Lonely Planet) with all of their favourite spots.  So Erin and I hit the road again.  This time it was a nine hour bus ride north to Tha Khaek.  Once there, we rented a motorbike again and toured around to the many caves in the area.  The surrounding landscape was spectacular!  It is very similar to Vietnam with respect to the limestone rock formations and mountains, but much greener.  A highlight of our Tha Khaek visit was hanging out with a group of locals for the day on their family picnic outing.  We had just surfaced from one cave we’d been stumbling through in the dark when a guy asked us to come and join him for a drink and some food.  We initial thought that the picnic set-up was a make-shift restaurant and sat down on a mat on the floor and proceeded to order drinks.  We felt so proud that we had mastered the art of ordered drinks using our newly found Laos language skills.  "Jow mee song bia Loas bien bo" (I would like two cold beers).  We hadn’t learned how to say “please” yet.  We were passed a glass of warm beer each with an ice cube in it.  We graciously accepted.  It wasn’t until a few moments later that we realised that we’d just ‘ordered’ a beer from a family picnic outing.  “Dumb Tourists”!  They didn’t seem to mind though and enjoyed our company for the remainder of the day.  In fact, they wouldn’t let us leave!  It was great fun hanging out with a local family and eating local Laos barbeque food with them.  We offered money, but they wouldn’t accept.After Tha Khaek we took a bus to Vientiane, the capital of Laos.  For a capital city, much like the rest of Laos, it was very relaxed.  We didn’t do too much there.  We visited temples and markets, etc.  At night we ate at really nice open air restaurants set-up along the banks of the Mekong.  It was nice, but deep down we’re not really ‘big-city folk’.  So we caught a bus further north to Vang Vieng.  Here, we found where all of the ‘falang’ (tourists) had been hiding out.  Under normal circumstances this might not have been our cup of tea, but we really hadn’t seen too many tourist infested towns in a while, so we ate it up.  The big draw in Vang Vieng is the river tubing.  They have set-up numerous bars along the banks of the river with all kinds of insane rope-swings, zip lines, slides, etc., for drunk tourist to try while tubing down the river.  As you float along, you are enticed into each bar with offers of free drinks, “happy” shakes ;-), or mud wrestling, ping pong….. you name it!  It was brill.  We hooked up with a South African/Mexican couple and spent the day partaking in the many activities available.  Aside from the drunkenness and debauchery of Vang Vieng tubing there are plenty of other things to do.  The scenery is amazing.  Beautiful, green covered mountains line the banks of the river.  There are many caves to visit (which we did one day).  I went rock climbing, which was excellent!  The instructor was amazing.  Unlike in Vietnam where the climbing outfit was run by westerners, this organization was Laos run.  In Vietnam, everything was set-up for us to just go ahead and start climbing, which was good for an introductory lesson, but here we were encouraged to learn every aspect of the climb, including set-up, rope knots, leading, spotting, etc.  And the climbing was top notch!  Next we headed further North to Luang Prabang.  This is a very old and quaint little French colonial town.  There are lots of great restaurants, beautiful old Buddhist temples and an amazing night market where the Hmong locals sell all kinds of hand crafted jewellery, textiles, paper lanterns and other trinkets.  There is also a street by the market lined with food vendors where you can eat vegetarian buffet for next to nothing (50 cents, I think).  From Luang Prabang we chartered a tuk-tuk to take us to Tat Kuang Si, a picture perfect multi-tiered waterfall.  We shared the tuk-tuk with some South American guys we met and spent the day swimming and jumping from rope swings into the crystal clear turquoise pools at each different level of the falls.  After a few days in Luang Prabang we headed north again to Nong Khiaw.  What a stunning place!  We stayed in a bamboo bungalow right on the river with breath taking mountains in the background.  We didn’t want to leave Nong Khiaw.  There was an amazing Indian restaurant (Dean’s) where we ate nearly every night.  We went throw net fishing with one of the locals one day.  We hiked up a mountain, which I really liked, and so did Erin……. once we got down to the bottom again…. LoL!  Actually, we had to laugh; on the way up, about 2 hours into the trek we reached a clearing from the jungle used for farming.  The view was spectacular!  Both Erin and I were breathing heavy and drenched with sweat.  We took a break and as we were sitting there trying to catch our breath, an old women (must’ve been 70 at least) came walking up the trail carrying about 80 kilo’s on her back, not a bead of sweat on her and not at all out of breath.  Erin and I felt disgusted with ourselves at how out of shape we were.  Then we realised that this was her morning commute to work.  Everyday she has to hike two hours up a steep mountain face to get to her farm to work the land.  And I thought my morning commute stuck in traffic in my nice air-conditioned car was bad!  From Nong Khiaw we took a really nice hour long boat ride further north up the Nam Seuang river to Muang Ngoi Neua.  You can only reach Muang Ngoi by boat.  It’s a very small Hmong village.  It is even quieter than Nong Khiaw, which is hard to believe.  We totally lucked out and found a bungalow on the river bank with an amazing view for only $3.50/night.  There were two large doors that opened up with a hammock right inside the room.  It was heaven!  We’d only planned and budgeted on staying a night or two there, but again, didn’t want to leave.  So we had quite a laugh trying to spread our money out as thin as possible from one day to the next.  Of course, if there are no roads to get to Muang Ngoi, there are definitely no ATM’s.  Surprisingly, we managed to stay for four nights and lived quite comfortably for around $9 per day for the two of us!   Next we decided to ‘fast-track’ it back down to Vientiane.  We stayed for one more night in Luang Prabang, and then took a very long bus ride back to the capital.  Roh and Rob had highly recommended that we stay at an Eco Resort in the jungle just on the outskirts of Vientiane.  I’m not going to mention the name of the place as the owner (Mike) doesn’t want the entire Laos backpacking community to find out about the place and turn it into another Vang Vieng.  What I can say though is that the place was paradise.  We spent five nights with Mike at his resort.  He bought 10 hectares of land with a river flowing through the middle of it.  He built ten (I think) bungalows.  There is no power on the resort.  All the food is bought fresh from the local markets and everything is recycled.  The resort has only been open now for five months and the first day we got there an unexpected group of fifteen people travelling together had found Mike’s business card in Vientiane and called him up to come and stay.  That made for a great party the first night!  They all left the next day, so for the rest of the time, it was very quite, which was nice.  We went on many hikes with Mike through his jungle.  He has owned the land for two years now and has a very good understanding of the ecology of the place.  He showed us so many different insect, lizard, plant and mushroom species.  We saw stink bugs, scorpions, spiders, centipedes, millipedes, rhino beetles, geckos, snakes, and so many other creepy crawlies that I can’t remember.  It was definitely another highlight of our trip (thanks again Roh and Rob).And that concludes our long overdue Laos blog.  What an amazing country!  I would recommend anyone go there.  It’s a place that you always imagined in your mind that Asia would be before tourism and development hit, like Thailand, 50 years ago (maybe?).  Erin and I both agreed that we were so glad that we went to Vietnam first before going to Laos as I don’t think that we would have appreciated Vietnam as much as we did at the time if we’d seen Laos first. 
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tone_n_erin/1/1241253720/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tone_n_erin/1/1241253720/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tone_n_erin/1/1241253720/tpod.html Sat, 02 May 2009 06:00:59 -0400 Our Adventures in South East Asia and beyond.

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Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Well, looks like I'm back on the "blog writing" hook again.  So here goes.... We flew to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) from Bangkok on March 20th.  We booked a hotel to be on the safe side as we didn't really know what to expect when we got there.  The hotel was great!  Madame Cuc's if I recall.  They picked us up from the airport for $5 which is a hell of a deal as a pose to taking a cab.  The hotel price for one night ($20) also included dinner and breakfast..... Score!  We booked all our tours through the hotel as well.  They were great!  Our first day in Saigon we did the typical tourist tour.  We visited the reunification palace, the war memorial museum, and a few Buddhist pagodas.  The war memorial museum is a definite sobering but informative must see in HCMC.  The next day we booked a trip to the Cu Chi tunnels.  This was where the Viet Cong (VC) battled and held off the American army for 20 years.  They did this by digging a complex underground matrix of tunnels and "snake holes" over 200kms long.  What a resilient group of people!  There was a section of tunnel around 100 meters long that tourists where allowed to crawl through.  I don't think I would've lasted 1 day, never mind 20 years.  It was so hot and unbelievably cramped down there.  I could barely fit crawling on my hands and knees, while the VC used to run through them.  Then I tried sitting in a "snake hole" for a while.  Again, I could barely fit.  A snake hole is what the VC soldiers would sit in from sunrise to sunset.  It is an undetectable hole that had enough room for one (very small) VC soldier and his/her gun.  When they heard someone approaching they could pop up and surprise their victim.  It was very surreal walking around imagining the American troops trying to capture this area of land when there were booby traps and all sorts of surprises waiting for them around every corner.    After Siagon we took a six hour bus ride north to Delat.  We met up with one of the local "Easy Rider" tour guides that day.  I was a little reluctant at first about the price and the idea of traveling for six days on a motorbike, but after a few Saigon Beers that night we decided that doing something so different was just what we needed to rekindle our travel zest.  After some negotiation we agreed upon a price and decided that I would drive one bike with Erin on the back and our guide, Peter, would take our luggage on the other bike.  So the next day we headed out with Peter.  We did a tour around Delat on the first day.  Peter was great!  He took us to see some amazing temples (the meditation Buddhist temple was the highlight), pagodas, waterfalls, etc.  The next day we set-out on the first leg of our journey.  It was an eight hour drive to Lak Lake.  We stopped off to see many sights along the way.  We were taken around local ethnic minority villages, silk worm farms, silk factories, waterfalls, temples, etc.  It was a great day, but by the end our butts were so sore we could barely walk.  The next day we were a little reluctant to get back on the bikes, but it didn't take long for us to settle in a get used to the long riding days.  We left from Lak Lake and drove up to Buong Mrong, then Play Cu, then to Kontum.  The highlight of the trip was driving along the Ho Chi Minh trail to get to our final destination of Hoi An.  The jungle and surrounding landscape was spectacular!  We had such a great time!  We became great friends with our guide Peter.  He was awesome!  He translated and involved us in conversations with the locals, took us to excellent local eateries, found us great accommodations and showed us the beautiful "untouched by tourism" areas of Vietnam.  Once we reached Hoi An we decided that we needed to chill out for a while after moving constantly for the previous week.  Peter, again, found us a great hotel in Hoi An, so we set-up shop for the next five days.  Hoi An is a beautiful little town.  It has a very French colonial feel to it.  There is a tonne of things to do there, but the main tourist draw is the custom tailor and cobbler shops which occupy most of the town.  Erin was very excited to get some clothes made.  I wasn't into the idea much myself, but when we started shopping around I soon changed my tune.  The workmanship was excellent (if you find the right tailor) and the prices were ridiculously cheap!  I ended up getting a custom made suit, shirts and a jacket.  Erin took pictures from the net of all of the clothes she wanted made and now has a full wardrobe of Versace and Gucci dresses and shirts for a fraction of the cost! We then shipped all of our clothes home as one doesn't require suits and such for backpacking.  After Hoi An we took a bus north to Hue where there was a great old Citadel (walled city).  We only spent a day looking around Hue and decided to venture further north to Ninh Binh.  We found a hotel directly in front of Tom Coc (a series of caves running along the river).  We took a boat tour up the river and through the caves, then rented bicycles one day and a motorbike the next day and toured around to see all of the temples built into the surrounding mountains.  One night around 6pm we got a knock on our hotel room door.  It was the owner's son asking us if we wanted to join the family for dinner.  When we came downstairs they had put a full spread on for all of the tourists staying in the guesthouse.  It was excellent!  All the food and drink you wanted for free!  We succumbed to peer pressure and ended up doing many shots of the local rice liquor and drinking quite a few beers.  After dinner they took us out for a big night of karaoke in town.  At this point in the trip, Erin and I are becoming pros at karaoke, or at least Erin is.  I think I somehow always end up being really drunk when karaoke is suggested, so I think I sound a lot better that I actually am.  But that night I was definitely not the worst one in the group.... Phew!  We were with a group of Frenchies (that were very nice) that were far worse than me.  From Ninh Binh we took a bus to Haiphong, then a boat to Cat Ba Island.  What a beautiful place!  The landscape gives you the feeling of being in some kind of a Jurassic world with massive lime stone rock formations jutting out from everywhere.  We went of an overnight junk boat sailing trip through Ha Long Bay which was spectacular!  We had been advised not to do this as there were supposedly hordes of tourist boats cluttering the bay.... Bull.  We did see a few, but they only added to the beauty of the place.  The only disappointment was that we ended up on boat with an Italian couple that didn't speak English and the Vietnamese couple driving the boat didn't speak English either.  So we played charades for a couple of days.  It was well worth it though.  We did some kayaking and were dropped off to swim at some beautiful deserted beaches.  Back on land we did some rock climbing, which I had not tried since I was ten years old.  I instantly loved it.  What a rush!  It was Erin's first try and she was not too keen, but to her credit gave it all she had, but couldn't get over her fear of heights.  Another highlight of our Cat Ba stay was turning our laptop on in a wifi café and getting a skype call from our buddy Jay who was having a party at his house.  It was 11am our time and 12am there time, so they were already half in the bag.  We decided to join our Canadian posse of friends for a 'virtual' beer, which led to many beers, which led a virtual jam session and us signing off at 4am their time after laughing at how drunk they had become and we were becoming.  We spend the rest of the day walking around the town with a slight drunken haze.  Good times! After Cat Ba we took a boat and bus to Hanoi.  We initially wanted to skip Hanoi, but found a more convenient way to cross over the land border into Laos (as a pose to a 24 hour bus ride to Vientiane) which necessitated a trip to Hanoi to catch a bus back down south.  Actually, it turned out to be a great city.  Pure chaos and madness, but very entertaining at the same time.  There was a crossroad in the old city called the Bia Hoi junction where you can get 3000 Dong (25 cent) glasses of very tasty local draught beer and hang out with some very intoxicated local and fellow backpackers.  We also went to see the infamous water puppet show which turned out to be a real laugh. We spent a couple of days getting lost through the maze of small alley ways and streets throughout the old city before catching our bus down south again to Dong Ha to cross into Laos.  We expected Dong Ha to be dump (not sure why) but were pleasantly surprised when we got there.  We hired a bike for the day and drove to a beautiful beach and had our last ocean swim and beach day chill out for the next little while.  It was great.   Vietnam was brilliant to us, just what we needed!  Such amazing people always smiling and saying "Hello" or "Sin Jow" everywhere we went.  So different from everywhere else we've been so far.  And now its on to Laos which is supposed to be "Same, same, but different".  Bring it on!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tone_n_erin/1/1239949200/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tone_n_erin/1/1239949200/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tone_n_erin/1/1239949200/tpod.html Fri, 17 Apr 2009 02:21:58 -0400 Our Adventures in South East Asia and beyond.

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Bangkok, Thailand

We decided to spend only a few nights on Langkawi, which was beautiful, but I really wanted to head to the next island, a short one hour boat ride north, as I heard that it was absolute paradise. The island is called Koh Lipeh and is actually part of Thailand. When we arrived on shore there was an "immigration office" or more along the lines of immigration hut. Very funny. Very handy actually. The only thing that sucks is that if you travel to Thailand by land or sea you only get a 15 day visa as opposed to 1 month. We were not aware of this till after they sold us our boat ticket. So as a side note to travellers, be aware of this fact. If you want you can cross over to Malaysia again and then immediately after cross back to Thailand and get a visa renewal.  Its still only for 15 days though. Royal pain in the ass. A lot of people that we met were quite annoyed with this as well. So anyhoo, we spent about a week hanging out on the fabulous Lipeh. It was so nice to be back in Thailand again. We had a little hut set just back from the main beach (Pattaya), which was beautiful.  Unfortunately, there were so many incredibly loud long-tail boats running supplies from the larger boats offshore, that it was not exactly the relaxing time we were hoping for. Funnily enough, this was also the busiest beach?  We decided to walk to the other end of the island to check out "Sunrise" beach. Once we got there we immediately realised that this is where we should be staying.  We went back to get our backpacks and moved in to our new room on this much quieter and even more beautiful side of the island. This place is what postcards are made of. I can't even describe how clear the water was or how beautiful the beach.  I'll just post some pictures and you'll get the drift. We met another couple from Germany with whom we had many dinners and pancake lunches. It was really quite a hard week if you must know. Wake up, eat breakfast, snorkel. Eat lunch, read, snorkel. Eat dinner, have a bevie, go to bed. Then we had to wake up the next day and repeat the whole scenario. It was torture. Seriously though, there was one downside, the mosquitoes. Of course they never touched Tone, but were all over me. I was completely covered in bites, which did make it a lot easier to say "goodbye" to paradise when we had to leave for Bangkok to sort out our Vietnam visas. We love you Lipeh but we're ready to go. We began traveling at 9 in the morning and arrived in Bangkok at something like 4am. Who knows what time it was. It was all a blur. Another aside to travellers coming from Lipeh to Bangkok: the bus is NOT a sleeper bus, they lie. They also play loud Thai music for most of the ride. Oy vey. But either way we got there. It was nice to be back in Bangkok, like seeing an old friend. We hung out mostly in the tourist area for the week that we were there, but we did manage to see a few wats and temples that we missed the first time around. There is great shopping to be had in Bangkok. We took the opportunity to update the old wardrobe a bit as it was looking a bit grungy. I also wanted to get a new tattoo for my birthday and knew that this was a great spot for it. Thailand knows their tattoo art. After some internet research and popping into some studios, I finally decided on Mr. Yai on Khaosan road. I just got a good vibe from his shop. They don't try to push you into anything like some of the studios there. He is a great artist who uses only new needles (this is good, this is good) and he is very clean. Doesn't speak much English but his partner can translate. He is a real artist and even did part of my tat free hand. Overall a great experience. If you're in Bangkok for some work go and see Mr.Yai 133 Khaosan rd. On the night before my birthday we joined up with our friend Claire, a Brit that we met in Australia. We had a great night out sharing travel stories and advice. She had just come from Vietnam which is where we were heading next, so that was good help for us. The next day I was woken up with chocolate cake and fresh orange juice with Tony singing "happy birthday". We then went out for lunch to Mc Donald's. It was my naughty birthday indulgence. Sounds kinda gross but you crave western junk sometimes after eating rice dishes so regularly. We then watched movies in the room for the rest of the day on my request. In Bangkok for my birthday and that's what we do. I know, pathetic but that was a nice treat too. I must admit that I did get pretty depressed though. Holidays and special occasions are the times when you get homesick for your family and friends. I did get cards from all the important people online so that was really nice. I just happened to go on skype and who was there but Jodi and Meliss and the girls from the salon. Then my mom pops into the picture and the all start singing. Well that was it. Waterworks! It was so great I can't tell you. The next day we got ready for our flight to Vietnam. Very exciting. New country, new people, new landscape. Onward and forward. Take it away Tony.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tone_n_erin/1/1237813320/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tone_n_erin/1/1237813320/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tone_n_erin/1/1237813320/tpod.html Mon, 23 Mar 2009 09:04:51 -0400 Our Adventures in South East Asia and beyond.

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Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan, Malaysia

So it's finally my turn to write in our blog. Now you get to hear what really goes on in our travels! We arrived in KL unscathed and eager to be back in Asia. Yes! Cheap food and accommodation, hadn't seen that for a long time.  Besides all that we love really Asian culture. Our first impressions of Kuala Lumpur was that it was just another big dirty city, which hasn't changed. Checked into Le Village hostel in China Town for $10 a night, and then headed out for some street grub. Chicken satay and rice at $4 for the two of us, brilliant. Ahhhh! Good to be back! Stayed in the city for a few nights and then we decided that we wanted out of the metropolis for a bit, so we took a bus the next day down  south to a port town called Melaka. After a pleasant two and a half hour air conditioned bus ride, we arrived in Melaka. Great time to visit as it was Chinese new year, but not so great for finding accommodation. After discovering that our Lonely Planet recommendation was booked, we pulled the old trick where I get to wait in a café with the bags whilst Tone hunts for a room. Not a bad deal for me. He found us a great spot with a roof top "patio" just around the corner from the main street. The place was in need of a few licks of paint but you can't complain for ten bucks a night. We got settled in and then set out to explore. The little town had a lot of character with all of the red Chinese lanterns draped across the streets for the celebration. Vendors selling everything you could imagine and wonderful aromas coming from various food stalls. We wanted to try something new and adventurous for dinner, but after walking around for an hour and trying to find a seat, we settled for some fried rice. Something new and different? Not so much. Oh well. There would be many more culinary adventures to come. The next day we had a very leisurely walk around the city, checking out all the sites. That night Howard (the owner of our guesthouse) took us to his pub where they had live music. His business partner Ringo plays guitar and sings there most nights. When he heard that Tone and I like to play he had us picking out song selections. I got up and sang a few with Ringo and then Tony and I did a few numbers. The Chinese patrons very much liked their Canadian musical guests. It was great fun. In the morning I informed Tony that we were getting a trishaw ride and heading into Little India for some curry in the afternoon. So after a stop at the royal wooden palace, we bartered for a noisy trishaw trip. They have their vehicles all pimped out with huge fake flowers and blast music out of big speakers rigged to the back. Lots of  Billy Jean and Thriller pumping out of those things. So we spent some time walking around checking out the bindis and the mehndi and the bangles and the saris. Man I could spend hours in any Little India. I'm sure that Tone would agree. We stopped off for a bite at our first banana leaf restaurant. They serve you all kinds of curries, chutneys and sambles right on your banana leaf place mat. The best part is that you get to eat with your hands! Few places where you can do that and it's actually acceptable (with the exception of medieval times). The food was fantastic. All in all we probably spent about six fairly laid back days in Melaka. Lots of strolling and lots of eating. When we had enough we headed back for the noise of KL. We didn't really want to stay there long, but there was a Hindu festival going on at the near by Batu Caves. So we would have to rough it for a few more days. The festival is called Thaipusam and we were both pretty excited about the fact that we would get to experience this, as we have heard about it and always wanted to go. A chance of a lifetime. Every year over 3 million Hindu followers travel to the batu caves where they show their devotion to their gods. Many of them give back for wishes granted that year by piercing themselves with skewers and hooks of different shapes and sizes. Not for the squeamish.   So when the day arrived we were pretty eager to get on the train to the caves. After a long and sweaty wait for our ride, we finally arrived at our destination. Immediately after stepping off the train your through the gates. You're greeted by the site of many people (men, women, boys and girls) getting their heads shaved for the event. Loud (and I mean deafening) music is blasting out of speakers everywhere, and surprisingly enough there are even fairway rides. Beautiful women are decked out in wonderful silk saris with little white flowers hanging from their long ebony locks. There are tonnes of stands lining the walkways where they're selling everything Indian from bangles to Bollywood. We passed by there as quickly as we could (which wasn't very fast) so as to get closer to all of the real excitement. We broke through the crowd to find yet another slew of people who are watching the never ending procession of devotees making their way to the caves. There were women with large urns of milk called "cassava" balanced atop their heads who seemed to be in a trance state. Some of the men were participating in this as well only with much larger urns. Though the real spectacles, were the men (and a few women as well) who were carrying very large cage-like contraptions that were adorned with pictures and peacock feathers. And as if this wasn't enough, they were pierced with several hooks (some through the back, some through the chest) which in many cases had some type of fruit hanging from them. Some of them even had thick skewers that went right through one side of their face, through their tongue, and out the other side. Wow! What a site. You don't see that every day that's for sure. I was snapping pictures left right and center, while Tone was busy getting some video footage. Every once and a while we had to back up, as some of the men were really getting into the dancing and their large contraptions could have taken an eye out. I had to take a breather and step away from the crowd for a minute, so I left Tone to filming. People were interested in where I was from and wanted to know how I was enjoying myself (we were among the few white tourists) and would come up from out of nowhere to start a conversation. They are really lovely people. I learned that they have actually banned this type of festival in Indian, interesting. Tone came over and we met each other with inquiring looks. Hmmm. Should we go for it? Yeah, let's do it! We headed over to commence the long trudge up the two hundred and seventy two steps to the caves. As we were walking we saw a familiar face and shouted out "hey Pierre!". Our French friend that we had met on Fraser Island in Oz was heading to the steps as well. Small world. So the three of us squeezed into line as best we could. We were at a stand still for at least fourty five minutes or so, absolutely soaked with our own sweat as well as the sweat of others. Pierre decided that he had had enough and pushed his way out of line. All of a sudden the crowd began to surge forward carrying us with it. People were pushing and shoving, and one man was even involved in a tug of war with a thief over his camera. I even had the pleasure of having my bum grabbed several times by lord knows who. I angrily turned around and shouted " hands off my ass!"which was just met by men giggling like school girls. Charming. "Tony, I'm going in front of you from now on." When we reached the foot of the steps our hearts were pounding with adrenaline. There was a bit more space on the steps which was a definite relief.   I haven't even felt such a rush since my last Tool concert. Some guy looked at us and said "you two okay?" We assured him we were fine. "Where you from my friend?" "Minnesota baby!" This dude was having a riot. We finally got to the top of the massive   opening. We were told that it's the second largest cave in the world. It was jam packed with, you guessed it, more people. Our nostrils were filled with the smell of incense and there were many people being blessed by swamis while others chanted loudly. Quite the sight for our western eyes to behold. As you can imagine we of coarse had no idea as to what was happening, it was just a thrill to be a part of it. After taking in all the sights that the cave had to offer, we started our decent down the steps. It didn't take nearly as long going down as coming up.  We thought that we would want to stay all day long and into the night, but after four hours we were done. Completely exhausted! Imagine how some of the pierced worshipers felt. So we took our filthy selves back into the city for a much needed shower. We decided that our next stop in Malaysia would be in Batu Ferringhi on the island of Penang, named so after the penang or beetle nut which some Asians mix with tobacco and chew to put a little lift in their day. After we had come to this conclusion, Tone checked his email and discovered that his parents had booked a last minute trip to Malaysia and were heading to Batu Ferringhi. It couldn't have worked out better. They had booked a three bedroom apartment with access to the resort pool. We were both definitely excited for this and very ready to leave our little shoe box of a room for some luxury. So we got the okay from the property manager Kelvin and went to the condo a few days earlier than the folks to get settled in. Wow. Clean fluffy towels? Air con? Big cushy bed? We have arrived.  Kelvin came in the afternoon and drove us to Gurney plaza so that we could pick up some groceries and other provisions. What a super nice guy. The next night he took us out to dinner at one of his local spots where we tried ostrich for the first time and it was very tasty. We then killed some time at the night market before the parents were to arrive. Kelvin came with us to wait in the lobby for them, and when they finally arrived they were absolutely knackered. It was so good to see them after so long, and so weird and wonderful to have people from home with us in Asia. We spent the next few days lounging by the pool and catching up with James and Steph. Well you can only take so much pool and sun so one day (don't ask me to remember which) we peeled ourselves off the deckchairs and ventured into Georgetown. First we went to the reclining Buddha temple and the Myanmar Buddhist temple. James and Steph loved their first taste of authentic Asian architecture.  We then headed around the town to a few other temples and a taste of the city. We ended our excursion in Little India which you all know I love, and this one was no exception. Probably the best one I've been to yet.  After a long and crazy bus ride we were back in Batu Ferringhi. We spent many more days lounging, working out at the gym and swimming. It was so great as we all needed the break. Steph and James were sick of the winter and all the shovelling, and as silly as it may sound, Tone and I were wiped from traveling. Not all of our time was lazy though. Steph and I decided to have a girl day and went back to Little India so that we could do some serious shopping without the boys. We had an amazing day looking in on Hindu temples, eating Indian cuisine, and of coarse, shopping!   I was really in need of the female company.  We came back at around 9 pm to find that the boys had been out on scooters all day long, and had driven around the whole island. Props to them for braving the crazy traffic! They both had a terrific time.   James and I had our own day as well. We went to the fish spa where we had an hour of reflexology, a half hour neck and shoulder massage, and finally the fish spa. For those of you who aren't familiar with that, I'll explain. The spa has tanks full of little fish called garra ruffa, or more commonly known as "Dr. Fish". You put your delicate tootsies in the water and the fish immediately go to work eating away all of the dead skin. Sounds gross, but it actually feels very relaxing after you get over a fit of the giggles. When you're done your toes feel as soft as a kitten. They had small, medium and larger fish, so we opted to go for the big boys. We both really enjoyed it, only it seems the big Dr. Fish were a bit over eager when it came to Pounds as they ended up taking a little chunk of flesh off his leg. I thought that they weren't supposed to have teeth? Still, he soldiered on and got over his injuries just in time for a margarita at lunch. It was great to have some one on one with Pounds. Tone and Steph ended up renting a scooter and touring the island. The highlight of their day was spending time at the snake temple. They were privy to the feeding of the resident ten meter long reticulated python. He has amazing footage of the thing swallowing a live chicken whole. They were then instructed to leave the cage because "one chicken not enough and the snake may still be hungry". So it was about three weeks that we ended up staying with the parents, which both parties were thrilled about. "We thought we'd only get two!" they exclaimed. The last Friday before we left the four of us had a night out at the Lone Pines. The buffet dinner was 69 ringgit (about $23) and all you can eat and drink until about 10:30, so we showed up for 6. Needless to say, the night got a bit messy. The minute your glass touched your lips the waiter was over to refill it, we didn't have a chance of staying sober. The four of us were up dancing most of the night, with Tone and I cutting in with all the old biddies. We had so much fun that our heads definitely felt it the next day. Had a few more days with James and Steph, then bid them farewell and caught the ferry to the neighbouring island of Langkawi. The entire three weeks was such a good break for Tone and I. It was so good to see family and recharge our travel batteries and now we were ready to start exploring again. 
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tone_n_erin/1/1234191360/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tone_n_erin/1/1234191360/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tone_n_erin/1/1234191360/tpod.html Mon, 09 Feb 2009 09:58:53 -0500 Our Adventures in South East Asia and beyond.

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Airlie Beach, Queensland, Australia

After Brisbane we headed up to Hervey Bay.  We met up with our friend Kate from Newcastle and checked into a camp site.  Hervey Bay is a cool little coastal town and is the main jump point for Fraser Island.  We hung around Hervey bay for a couple of days and got ourselves quite familiar with the local establishments.  We booked all of our Fraser Island and Whit Sunday excursions from one of the travel/hostel chains there. On the day we were set to leave for Fraser we met up at the hostel and were introduced to everyone that was going to be in our self drive 4x4 truck and camping with us on the Island.  There was Erin and I, Kate, three lads from Dublin, two Frenchies and a couple of lads from England.  We were all nominated different tasks to get everything ready for the 3 days on the island.  I volunteered to drive so I got off pretty easy.  Erin was dropped of with Kate at the grocery store and had ½ an hour to grab enough food for 11 people for 3 days.  She said it was like a mad store dash, basically pulling everything she could off the shelves into the trolley as she ran around the store!  So, we got everything packed into the 4x4 and hit the road.  Once on the island we realised why we were given such a lengthy safety briefing and driving lessons.  Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world.  And that's all there is.  Sand, trees, a few lakes, and more sand!  No roads to speak of.  When the tide goes out the beach becomes a highway and is listed on a map of Australia as an actual state highway.  The speed limit is 80km/hr, which is very fast.  You realise the safety issues when you first get on the "highway" and put your foot down and come across your first "washout".  This is when the tide goes out the rivers and lakes run into the ocean causing deep trenches to appear on the beach.  Driving in one direction you would see them easily, but going in the other directions you can't see a thing until its too late.  The first day one of the English lads, Ben, was driving along doing about 70km/hr and we hit a washout!  The people in the back, including Erin and I almost hit our heads off the roof and then as we landed from the 3ft. drop off the truck skidded to re-align itself in the sand and for a moment it felt like we were going to flip!  It was pretty crazy!  After that incident I was nominated by everyone in the truck to do most of the driving.  If you're careful it is actually really fun.  It's like a big kid's playground.  We did a couple of day excursions to different places on the island.  The best being Indian Head, which is a lookout point on the island.  From the top we saw tonnes of tiger sharks swimming below, a pod of dolphins, sea turtles and a couple of large sting rays.  It was amazing!  Needless to say you don't go swimming in the ocean there what with all the sharks and the strong currents and rip tides that can carry you out to sea.  The swimming spots were a couple of fresh water lakes and rock pools.  Lake McKenzie was the most beautiful, but also the busiest.  At the camp we had a couple of great party nights and got to know our now good Irish friends, Ray, Derek and Darragh really well.  Overall, Fraser Island was a great crack and a must do for anyone visiting Oz. Next stop was Airlie Beach which is the jump point to get to the Whit Sunday Islands.  We booked in a two night sailing trip (sleeping on the boat) around the islands on an adrenaline race boat called "The Matador".  We were a little disappointed that we picked a couple of days when the wind was not very strong, so the whole time we had the engines running and were cruising along at a very slow pace.  We only had the sails up twice, but at those times it was pretty cool.  The Whit Sundays were great.  White Haven beach was one of our stops and is rated as one of the top 5 beaches in the world, not only for its beauty, but also because of the quality of the white sand.  It was 98% silica, which makes it a very fine sand and really comfortable and cooling to walk on.  We also did our Great Barrier Reef snorkelling experience on this trip.  It was good, but Erin and I both agreed that Indonesia was much better.  But then this was only the outer barrier reef.  Plus, you were advised not to go in the water without a stinger suit on to prevent stings from the jellyfish in the water.  Overall the Whit Sundays were great, but basically just a big two day long party on the boat, which isn't all that bad!  We decided to head back down to Sydney to be with friends over Christmas.  We didn't make it that far as Sydney was a good 2500Kms away and ended up in Seal Rocks and rented a cabin on the river and had a nice quite xmas.  It was great!  We got into Sydney boxing and went to stay at our friends in Manly.  We had a great time there and also hooked up with our Irish buddies for a few nights out in the city.  Next, we decided to go on one last trip before we had to seriously start trying to sell the car.  We went on a 6 day trip through the Blue Mountains and surrounding area.  Wow!  Absolutely breath-taking!  We started at Echo Point and went to see the infamous Three Sisters.  Then we went to the Jenoleon Caves and had a tour through some amazing lime stone caves.  After Jenoleon we went to an area a little off the beaten track called Kanagra Walls.  That was our favourite place.  It was so beautiful!  There are waterfalls running down the side of the cliff face with out-croppings where rock pools have been formed.  You can swim and relax in the rock pools while looking out at spectacular vistas, and best of all, nobody was there!  It was brill! Our last 12 days in Oz where when we had some of our best and most stressful times.  First off, trying to sell the car was a nightmare!  Secondly, our trip to Fiji was cancelled due to the cyclone that hit there.  We lost a lot of money on our flights as the travel insurance company wouldn't refund our tickets.  We're still fighting with them now.  But on the upside, we had some great times with our friends in Manly and our Irish and now also Welsh buddies staying in the city.  We also did a karaoke night out with a group of Korean students that were staying at our hostel.  I was pretty apprehensive about it as I'm not too big into karaoke, but we had a blast.  We rented a private room and went all out.  It was so funny!  Two days before we were leaving we still hadn't sold the car.  We were loosing our minds!  Then, just in the nick-of-time we had a guy interested.  It was the weekend so all the banks were closed so he had no way of getting money to us.  Luckily he was willing to do a paypal transaction.  It was pretty slick, like some kind of spy movie or something.   We both had our laptops there transferring electronic funds in and from our Cayman Island banks accounts.  Talk about cutting it down to the fine line!!  Erin and I walked of there out and took a huge sigh of relief that actually lifted an extraordinary weight from our shoulders.  We had one last night out to celebrate with our new found life long friends, then got on the plane. We are now in Malaysia, back on our cross South East Asia adventure.  Erin has volunteered to write the next journal entry, so I'm off the hook, and so is everyone that has actually sat and read through all of the drivel I write...... LoL! 
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tone_n_erin/1/1225527240/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tone_n_erin/1/1225527240/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tone_n_erin/1/1225527240/tpod.html Fri, 05 Dec 2008 06:33:25 -0500 Our Adventures in South East Asia and beyond.

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Yogyakarta, Java, Indonesia

Java: We flew into Yogyjakarta (Java) from Denpesar (Bali).  We are getting to be like veteran travellers know.  Found a taxi and straight off to a Lonely Planet recommended hotel without a hitch and for a fraction of the cost of taking the "Tourist" taxis into town.  Unfortunately the Lonely Planet recommended hotel smelled like piss..... again!  Not sure who's doing these hotel reviews, but they must really like the smell of piss.  It didn't matter though as there were loads of hotels in the area.  We found another one that was very basic, but clean and very cheap.  It was called the Nuri Losmen.  There was a parrot out front which we found to be quite entertaining..........at first.  He would mimic any sound he heard.  So when we first arrived he was meowing like a cat.  Then making gecko sounds.  Little did we realize that at 5am he also liked to make his favourite noise of a car alarm, which I'm convinced, was at twice the original volume.  Oh well, it was good for a laugh with the other guests in the hotel.  We met some great people at Nuri's Losmen.  Too bad we only got to hang out with them a few of nights as we could've travelled with them for a while.  They were great fun!  Peter was from Northern Ireland.  Thomas was from Germany.  Adu was from Manchester, England.  Jane was a Gordy (from Newcastle, England).  There were a few others that we'd meet up with for drinks at night as well.  We also met a group of American girls travelling with one Canadian guy "that were all like........ Oh my god...... and stuff" who annoyed the hell out of the rest of the crew, but were good fun to take the 'mick' out of.  Yogyjakarta is actually a really fun city, contrary to our initial ideas about the place.  There are tonnes of things to do.  It's the most popular jump point to get to Borobudur (the largest Buddhist temple in the world) and Prombenan (the largest Hindu temple in Indonesia).  We did a day trip to see them both.  Very impressive!  They were both built around the eighth and ninth centuries.  Borobudur sits at the base of Mt. Merapi.  Not the one we hiked in Sumarta.  I guess Merapi means "Big Fire" so the name is fitting for a number of volcanoes, except this Mt. Merapi is the most active volcano in the world.   It last erupted in 2002 which caused damage to the Borobudur ruins.  It looked in great shape when we saw it though.  We went for sunrise, which was way too damn early, but worth it when we got to the site.  Prombenan was a very impressive temple as well, but we couldn't get too close to the main Shiva and Vishnu temples as there was an earthquake back in 2006 that did extensive damage to the temples and they were still unsafe to walk inside.  Also, in Yogyjakarta, there is a palace and a water castle, bird and food markets, traditional Javanese puppet shows and traditional Javanese dancing.  Needless to say, we weren't bored.  Plus, there is a great nightlife scene full of different restaurants, pubs and clubs and a really cool "backpacker" friendly feel to the place.  We stayed in Yogyja for 6 nights in total.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tone_n_erin/1/1228468320/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tone_n_erin/1/1228468320/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tone_n_erin/1/1228468320/tpod.html Fri, 05 Dec 2008 00:15:46 -0500 Our Adventures in South East Asia and beyond.

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Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Australia Well, it's been a month since my last entry.  A lot has happened in that time making it hard to keep on top of the travel blog.  And now I'm left trying to condense a month's worth of activities into a readable diary.   Where to start?  From the beginning would be good I guess.  We arrived in Sydney and decided to head straight to our friends place that we met in Bali.  We took the train from the airport and caught the ferry from Circular Quay to Manly Beach.  As soon as we arrived we realised that our money was not going to go as far here.  Crikey, it's expensive!  We had budgeted for a western country but didn't realise just how pricey it was here.  Luckily our dollar is strong and we are getting about $1.25 Aussie dollars to the Loonie, which helps.  So, we arrived at Sharon and Tony's place in Manly beach.  They have a beautiful house set up on Queen's Cliffe overlooking the beach.  Tony is quite a handy man and completely renovated the house to their liking.  It has a very open concept.  In the kitchen, all of the windows remove so you feel as if you're cooking in open-air.  When Zeke came home from school he was very pumped to see us,  as were we to see him.  He took us on a little tour of Manly bay, walking through the cliffs and caves around the Queen's Cliffe point.  The beach is beautiful.  White sands and great surf.  Later on in the week we also did a four hour trek of all the bays and beaches around Manly.  Its crazy to think that a sprawling city like Sydney can offer such amazing tranquility and beautiful nature at the same time.  That night Sharon had a friend over to stay the weekend as well.  Just goes to show how accommodating they are to friends and strangers.  We all hit if off great!  Andy (Sharon and Tony's buddy), Zeke (and his buddy Dave) and Erin and I all sat around and drank, got to know each other and had a wicked jam session.  It was great fun!  Over the course of the week staying at Sharon and Tony's they were so hospitable.  We ate like a King and Queen.  Sharon actually wrote and published a Mexican cook book.  Needless to say she knew her way around the kitchen.  And she'd passed on her talents to Zeke who was also an excellent cook.  Tony was brilliant!  He took us to a car auction in Sydney and helped us buy a car.  We ended up getting a 2002 Ford Folcon station wagon, with only 160,000 kms on it for a hell of a deal.  Then he took us all over the place to help us get it "street legal" (i.e. Registration, plates, insurance, etc.).  Without him, I don't know how we would've done it.  Sharon drove us into to town to help get us all set-up for our camping excursion.  They were both awesome help and we are so indebted to them for taking in complete strangers and showing us the ropes.  Staying at their house also gave us an address in Australia to ship all of our camp gear to from home.  My parents were great in sorting out all the details and making that happen.  So in one week we had a car, camp equipment, empty wallets and we on the road!  Before leaving they took a look in our Lonely planet guide to Australia and sat down with us and basically said "forget everything you read in here, until you get to Queensland state, we'll give you all you need to know to get you through New South Wales".  So, now we had our "improved" itinerary so we set off.  The first leg of our travels took us 3.5 hours north of Sydney to a place called Hawk's Nest via The Tea Gardens.  There is a beautiful stretch of white sand beach running up a sort of narrow channel dividing one surf beach from the sheltered bay behind it.  We set-up our first camp at a site called Jimmy's Beach.  We were quite pleased with ourselves and feeling like we were finally embarking on the adventure we were expecting in Australia.  Our tent was comfortable, our stuff sac pillows were great, our sleeping pads like heaven.  Wow, do I miss that feeling!  I think it lasted about two nights.  Then our tent was too small, our pillows uncomfortable and our sleeping pads like blocks of wood.  But hey, its not so bad, we're 1 month in and only another 2 to go........ AHHHH!!!  Anyway, back to Hawk's Nest....... We hiked up the mountain on the point for some great vista's of the coast line.  The only downside on such a great beach was the ocean water was frigid (unless you had on a surf steamer, which unfortunately we did not).  Two days there of hiking the beaches and we packed up camp and drove up to Myall Lake National Park.  We set up our camp in the park where "camping fees applied".  Owkay???  We were the only people there and kept expecting someone to come along and collect our money.  The area was great.  We were right on the lake.  We went into the nearest town (Buladelah) and I picked up some cheap fishing gear.  For the next week we swam in the lake, fished, hiked around the park, read our books and hung out with the local wildlife.  Still, nobody came.  So, a week's free camping.  What a relief on our budget from our week in Sydney.  The park was beautiful.  Our first night we introduced ourselves to the family of kangaroos that came to see us every night after that.  Erin had a name for each one.  The possums also came around at night to see what we were up to on a regular basis.  The goannas (large monitor lizards) hung out with us during the day.  And the kookaburras were always around trying to pick up food scrap and laughing at us all the time.  Oh, and who can forget the very boisterous wild turkeys who would jump in the back of the station wagon and get into all of our food if we weren't looking.  By the fifth night our private wildlife sanctuary was disturbed.  We had gone into town to pick up some supplies and came back to see a number of other camps set-up.  It took a while to clue in as we had totally lost track of what day it was, but turns out it was the weekend and a lot of Aussies had come to enjoy Myall Lakes as well.  At first we didn't like sharing our camp and realised that with all of the people around, our local camp buddies weren't coming around to visit anymore.  It wasn't so bad though.  We met a group that were wake boarding and fishing in the lake and they were very friendly.  They had gone out fishing at four in the morning and came back with a huge catch of prawns (shrimp).  I guess they went out with a big spot light and in the dark all of the prawns are attracted to the light, then they simply scoop them out with a net (which would be considered poaching in Canada, but crikey!  We ain't in Canada no more Todo).  They gave us a whole bunch as they had more than had their fill.  We ate them for dinner that night and they were delicious.    The next day the weather took a turn for the worse.  It started to rain and got quite cold.  We packed up our wet tent and headed out of Myall Lakes as we were told that the weather was not going to let up for the next few days.  We made our way further north along the coast to Seal Rocks.  The weather had let up so we set up our camp at Treachery Beach camp ground.  It was a very cool area.  The camps were set right in the bush which almost looked like a mangrove forest.  We still saw kookaburras, and wild turkeys, but the possums didn't come at night as there were dingoes all around the camp area.  The beach at Seal Rocks was really nice, but the water was still too cold to swim.  We took a hike up to the lighthouse on the point.  It was set quite high up in the cliffs so you could see quite a ways up and down the coast line.  We stayed at Treachery beach for two nights.  The weather was on and off.  When it was off, it completely sucked!  Camping in the rain is definitely not much fun.  So, once again we packed up camp and headed out to our next spot on our itinerary.  We were going to stay in Port Macquarie, but it didn't look like there was much to do there and the weather was terrible, so we travelled on to our next spot.  We got to Point Plumber late in the day and it was still pissing it down.  We decided that setting up in the rain and   being miserable all night didn't sound like the best idea, so along the way we noticed beach side cabins for rent.  We decided to ride out the storm there.  We rented a great place with three bedrooms, living room, kitchen, laundry room and a hot shower.  It was such a refreshing change to be somewhere warm and dry.  We took full advantage of all of the amenities and charged all of our electronics, did all of our laundry and cooked an amazing meal in the kitchen.  We watched TV and movies all night.  It was heaven!  The next day the weather cleared, but we were just too comfortable to leave.  We had had the best night's sleep we'd had in days, so we decided to stay another night.  We went for a great hike along the coast line of Point Plumber that day.  The next day we headed out to Belingen.  This is a small hippie town more inland from the coast.  We decided not to stay there and headed straight to Urunga and Mylestom.  We ended up staying the night at a caravan park in Mylestom.  The whole park was packed full of a caravan club that was touring up and down the coast.  There was probably around 100 people there.  They were all over 70.  They had set up a large marquise tent for the nightly bingo and uker tournaments.  The barbeque area was right next to their tent, and when Erin and I went up to cook our dinner we became the star attraction.  They couldn't understand why such young people had come to this "Biddy" park, and at this point, neither could we!  They were all really nice people and were feeding us rum balls and other tasty pastries that they had baked in their caravans during the day.  It was all very nice, but they really wouldn't leave us alone.  So with nowhere to escape, we hung out with them until bed time.  So at 8:15pm we all decided to turn in for the evening...... LoL!  The next day we headed down Waterfall Way (aptly named for all of the waterfalls scattered along the side of the highway) on our way to Point Look-out National Park via Dorrigo.  The drive into the mountains was great.  We stopped off a few times along to way to snap some photos of the scenery and waterfalls.  When we got to Point Look-out we stood out of the platform and took in the view for quite a while.  It was beautiful!  We went and set-up our camp at the base of the mountain at the Thunggutti camp area.  It was a great spot.  For $5 / night they had great camp sites, all of the fire wood you needed, and free barbeques to use.  But again, the place was deserted.  We were wondering where the hell everyone under the age of 60 was hiding out.  That night we made a great meal and had an awesome camp fire.  Everything was going great, until the sun set and for the first time we started to feel really isolated.  It was a little eerie.  Erin wouldn't go anywhere alone.  I was her bodyguard for the night, trying to be the big man and not show that I felt just as scared as she looked.  And to top it off, it was absolutely freezing that night.  We huddled together in the tent with our long-john's on, four layers of T-shirts, sweaters, and Erin with her big woolly hat on.  We were still freezing.  Every time we heard a noise outside Erin would freak!  I would tell her it was nothing, then lay there wondering what the hell the noise was.  There was one noise in particular that sent the hairs on the back of my neck standing straight up.  It sounded like the deep growl of a gorilla, or something big and friggin' scary.  It wasn't until a while later that we found out that it was a male kangaroo call.  Sure wish we would've know that at the time.  So, in the morning, after maybe getting a total of two hours of restless sleep we decided that we'd had enough.  It seemed very logical at this juncture to head to a place that was populated by a lot of people.  We skipped by a couple of remote looking spots on our itinerary and headed straight to Byron Bay.  Now this was more like it.  The place was packed!  Byron Bay is a very touristy beach side resort town.  It has great shops, restaurants and tonnes of things to do.  We had   arrived as all of the high school kids had just finished their semesters and were out for summer holidays.  The locals called them "Schoolies" and didn't seem to enthusiastic about them invading the town.  There was literally thousands of kids hanging out and getting wasted all over the place.  It was a refreshing change for Erin and I, except now we felt like the old "biddies".  Nevertheless, it made for great people watching.  We met a girl at our camp site (Kate) who was from Newcastle (about 2 hours from Sydney).  She was around our age and we hit it off.  We went into town one night (Friday, I think) and hit the local pubs.  It was hilarious walking around town and watching the chaos of hundreds of drunk teenagers unfold.  We noticed throughout the course of the evening how many kids were on crutches.  Kate found this quite perplexing and had a fascination with finding out what had happened to them.  We just assumed that most of them were surfing injuries.  We ended up talking to one guy and it turns out he had a nasty cricket accident and that was how he ended up on crutches.  We found this quite funny.  I'm not sure how you get a nasty accident in cricket, but we didn't push the issue.  After talking with him we were approached by two police men.  The police were out in full force all over the town, for obvious reasons.  They asked where we were from.  After telling them they asked us if we'd every heard of a "Serial Pest"?  We tried not to laugh and answered "no".  As it turns out, we had just been cavorting with a "Serial Pest" according to the police officers.  It was hilarious!  I mean come on... a Serial Pest? With an Australian accent it actually sounds like "Serial Pissed", which just added to our amusement.   We had a great time in Byron.  The weather was on and off again.  It mostly rained at night.  One night it rained so hard and for so long that we were hanging out in the camp barbeque shelter all night.  People were coming up and telling us how their tents leaked and everything in there was soaked.  We were dreading heading back to our tent that night, expecting the worst.  Luckily out tent was bone dry on the inside.  What a relief!  But on the nice days it was great.  The temperature was in the mid 30's and the ocean there was actually 'swimable'.  We had a couple of beach days.  We did a long hike around the bay and up to the lighthouse one day.  Rented bikes another day.  We ended up staying in Byron for a total of 7 nights.  After camping in the rain for the last week we decided that we needed to stay somewhere with a solid roof over our heads.  We packed up and drove to Murwillumbah.  We ended up staying in a YHA hostel there.  It was a great place.  The owner, Tassie (because he came from Tasmania) was very dedicated to the tourist industry.  He had a great business set up.  If you stayed for three nights or more you could use the bicycles and kayaks free of charge.  The hostel was built right next to the river tweed and with a great view of Mount Warning.  Every night at 9pm he would bring ice cream up for everyone in the common room.  'Everyone' at the hostel consisted of Erin and I, two 70 year old Aussie backpackers and a 60 year old backpacker from The Netherlands and Tassie.  WooHoo!  Party time!  Across the street from the YHA was a recreation center that had just invested $16 million into renovations.  They were offering free entry to everyone over the weekend to debut their improvements.  Erin and I went over and used the swimming pools, then went kayaking down the river, then went biking.  At the end of the day we were exhausted.  We tried to stay up but had to turn in at 9:15pm, after ice cream, with the rest of the biddies... LoL!  We decided the day after to relax from the strenuous activities and save ourselves for the hike up Mt. Warning the following day.  Tassie drove us up to the base of the mountain and picked us up at the end.  Before we left, in his very professional manner, he gave us a little talk about the mountain hike in the common room.  Then we got into the car and he informed us that we were about to listen to a tape recording of some of the history of Murwillumbah and some background of Mt. Warning during the drive up there.  We expected some sort of recorded narration from David Suzuki or something.  Tassie hit the play button on his portable stereo and it was his voice!  We were trying so hard not to laugh.  He had done the drive up to the mountain so many times that I guess he was tired of saying the same things over and over again, so he just recorded it.  It was perfectly synchronised to the drive.  You could even hear parts of the tape that happened just before we drove up to them (like crossing over a wooden bridge).  'Tassie', on the tape, would say things like "and on the left is this and that" and the 'Tassie' driving the car would keep quite but point to his left or right to indicate what the 'Tassie' on the tape was talking about.  It was quite comical.  But Tassie was very straight faced and professional, so we just sat quite, trying not to laugh and sound very interested by saying "Hmm" and "Really?"   The hike up Mt. Warning was awesome.  Turns out it is part of the world's third largest volcano crater.    Over the years water had eroded the edge of the crater so it just looked like a range of mountain peaks.  The walk up only took around two hours.  The last part of the walk up the steep mountain peak was quite strenuous.  The National Park had installed a chain railing so that you could pull yourself up the incline.  It was cool.  On the way back down you had to almost ab-sail backwards with the assistance of the chain.  The views at the top of the mountain were spectacular!  We are now in a camp site on Mount Tamborine called Thunderbird Park.  It's a great spot.  There is an adventure park right on the grounds that we are going to tomorrow.  It has platforms elevated a good 20 feet from the ground with all kinds of obstacles on it (rope nets, swings, elevated tunnels, zip lines, etc.).  On the mountain itself are tonnes of wineries, great views of the volcano crater, waterfall walks, just to name few. From here we are heading to Brisbane, and then who knows from there?  Our itinerary is pretty open.  A few 'definites' are; Fraser Island, The Whitsundays and The Great Barrier Reef.  And before heading back to South East Asia it looks like we might be meeting my parents in Fiji for a few weeks, so we are pretty excited about that, if we can fit it into our budget.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tone_n_erin/1/1225527480/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tone_n_erin/1/1225527480/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tone_n_erin/1/1225527480/tpod.html Sat, 01 Nov 2008 04:19:46 -0400 Our Adventures in South East Asia and beyond.

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Probolinggo, Java, Indonesia

Mt. Bromo. Well, our new posse of friends all went their separate ways so Erin and I decided to go ours too.&nbsp; We took a horribly cramped nine hour mini bus ride to Probolinggo which is close to where Mt. Bromo is situated.&nbsp; Mt. Bromo is renowned as being one of the most scenic volcanic landscapes in all of Indonesia.&nbsp; I haven't seen too many, but I would have to agree.&nbsp; It is breathtaking!&nbsp; Unfortunately, it is probably also one of the most 'touristy' destinations in all of Indonesia too, but with a strange twist.&nbsp; Everybody we saw came in from either Bali, or Yogyja from an extremely long journey like we did.&nbsp; They get to the hotel around 8pm, eat dinner, then off to bed.&nbsp; At 3am they get woken up to take a jeep ride up to a viewing point to see the sun rise over Mt. Bromo.&nbsp; Then back to their hotel by 8am, eat breakfast, then get on another bus to go another 8 hours, or so, in the opposite direction.&nbsp; In and out!&nbsp; It absolutely boggled our minds.&nbsp; I know Erin and I are lucky and have more time to stop and smell the roses, but that just doesn't sound like fun to me??&nbsp; Erin and I ended up staying for 3 nights.&nbsp; There are so many other good hikes around the area.&nbsp; We walked up to Mt. Bromo by ourselves the first day.&nbsp; It was around a 7 hour hike.&nbsp; We left at 9am.&nbsp; All the tourist hordes had cleared out by then and we had the place to ourselves.&nbsp; It was great!&nbsp; We walked around the entire volcano crater.&nbsp; Plus, walking up to the volcano passing through all of the small mountain villages was also really good.&nbsp; Because most people seem to take the jeep tours up to the volcano, the locals don't get to see many tourists actually hiking it.&nbsp; So we were quit a novelty.&nbsp; Everyone went out of their way to talk to us as we passed by.&nbsp; There were also a couple of schools filled with kids that all ran up shouting "Hello Mister" to both Erin and I.&nbsp; I guess they were about to learn how to say "Miss" in their afternoon class...... LoL!&nbsp; On the way back from Bromo just along one stretch of desert, Erin wanted to ride horses back.&nbsp; I'm not a big "Horsy" kind of person, but I went along to make Erin happy.&nbsp; Well, my poor horse.&nbsp; He looked about half the size of a horse from back home.&nbsp; When I mounted him, I'm sure his legs buckled!&nbsp; And this poor thing had to carry me a good kilometre or so.&nbsp; I was very apologetic to the horse when I got off..... LoL.&nbsp; I'm not sure what Erin liked more?&nbsp; Riding the horse, or watching me scream in pain every time the horse tried to start to trot.&nbsp; We also did another great hike through all of the farms in the mountains.&nbsp; Along the way we saw a bat cave with literally thousands of bats living there.&nbsp; It was quite something to see.&nbsp; Of course I couldn't be content with just looking at them from the nice clean viewing point, no, I had to climb right down in there to get some video footage.&nbsp; Getting down, not a problem, getting back out.......big problem!&nbsp; Everywhere I tried to put my hands to climb back out of the cave was covered in Bat poo!&nbsp; And I mean lots of it!&nbsp; Mmmm, Guano!&nbsp; Of course, Erin wouldn't give me a hand back out as my hand were covered in it.... LoL!&nbsp; I ended up having to walk quite a ways down river to find an easier spot to get back out, but man did I get some good video...... LoL!&nbsp; We intended on hiking up Mt. Ringit when we set out that day, but got completely lost along the way and just ended up doing a big circle around our hotel.&nbsp; A big four hour circle!&nbsp; It was still a great hike though.&nbsp; Beautiful scenery.&nbsp; We did the sunrise viewing on our last day, which was amazing!&nbsp; We were really surprised how many tourists were actually there.&nbsp; Where had they been hiding?&nbsp; We didn't see another soul in the last three days??&nbsp; But, when the sun rose you could see why so many people wanted to see it.&nbsp; The entire area seems to be referred to as Mt. Bromo, but that is actually only one of four volcanoes.&nbsp; The two to either side are Batok (2440m) and Kursi (2581m).&nbsp; In the background you can also see Gunung Semeru (3676m) which is still very active and has "mini" eruptions every 15 minutes.&nbsp; We saw it spew out smoke twice, but I guess if we were close and it was dark enough you could actually see lava spurting out of the top as well.&nbsp; After the sunrise viewing the jeeps drove everyone to the base of Mt. Bromo to walk up to the crater.&nbsp; It was interesting to see the volcano area filled with so many people.&nbsp; All of the locals had horses to give the tourists a ride up to the steps leading up to the crater.&nbsp; Erin and I chose to walk it.&nbsp; Another horse riding experience that early in the morning was not sounding to appealing to me.&nbsp; When we got to the crater there was a lot of people around.&nbsp; Indonesian tourists as well!&nbsp; Everyone was very click-happy with their cameras, including Erin and I.&nbsp; We went to a nice out-cropping to take a picture when five Indonesian guys (in their 20's..... I think?) came up and asked us to take a picture of them with their camera.&nbsp; Then they wanted us to be in the picture with them.&nbsp; Then they just wanted Erin in the picture.&nbsp; Then each one wanted their picture individually taken with Erin.&nbsp; They each had a camera so we were passing cameras around like they were going out of style.&nbsp; It was hilarious!&nbsp; Each time a new guy stepped up to take a picture with Erin they would ask me if it was ok, as if I were Erin's photo pimp or something? &nbsp; And Erin was loving every second of it with all of the attention.&nbsp; After a good 10 minutes of pictures I thought I'd better get one with our camera with Erin and all of her admirers.&nbsp; &nbsp; After that we took the jeep back to our hotel and packed up for the bus coming to pick us up at 9am.&nbsp; The bus came and was absolutely jam-packed.&nbsp; I ended up sitting on a wooden stool in the middle of the isle.&nbsp; It was only a 1 hour drive to Probolinggo, so it wasn't too bad.&nbsp; We were dreading our 8 hour bus ride back to Yogyja though thinking all of those people were going to be on our bus.&nbsp; When we got to the bus station and absolutely lucked out.&nbsp; There were only three of us on the mini bus ride back to Yogyja.&nbsp; We felt so privileged.&nbsp; So there we were on an air-con bus with the seats reclined and our feet up on the seat in front of us, loving every minute of it!&nbsp; I was fast asleep at about 6 hours into the journey when I got a rude awakening of steaming hot water scolding me from the air vents.&nbsp; The driver quickly pulled over and we all dove out of the van, which by this time was full of steam.&nbsp; The fan belt had snapped for the radiator heat exchanger, so the whole thing just over heated.&nbsp; If that wasn't bad enough we were literally in the middle of nowhere.&nbsp; We were stuck there for 5 hours while the driver and a local farmer were trying to fix the problem with two chickens, a spoon and a half eaten cob of corn...... LoL!&nbsp; Finally the driver gave up and realized that he had to call in for back-up......... FIVE HOURS AFTER THE FACT!&nbsp; He had told me, or lied to me, that he had called someone already 4 hours before that point.&nbsp; Anyway, we flagged down a local bus (which was really lucky) and got back to Yogyja at around 1:30am.&nbsp; We luckily found a hotel as most were full or locked up for the night.&nbsp; The funniest part of the story for me was telling some of our local friends who worked at the hotel our <i>crazy story and watching the expressionless look on their faces before they completely changed the subject.&nbsp; I guess an air-con scolding and five hour breakdown on the side of the road in Indonesian doesn't constitute as a good enough story?&nbsp; That would be like saying "today I woke up and ate breakfast" over here!&nbsp; Oh well. Well, today is my 30th birthday which is a little bit weird not being home with family and friends, but apart from that it's going pretty good.&nbsp; We've met a couple of travellers that we are going out for some drinks with tonight, so it should be fun!&nbsp; I'm also booked in to get a tattoo to commemorate my 30th and our year away.&nbsp; Erin was cute in the morning.&nbsp; I had gone out the night before and had a few drinks with friends, so I was feeling a little spongy at 8am when Erin woke me up singing happy birthday with two Dunkin Doughnuts with candles in them.&nbsp; They sure helped to bring me around though.&nbsp; We got a Bitchuck (bicycle taxi) down to the bird market.&nbsp; It was great!&nbsp; Tonnes of different species of birds, snakes, bats, monkeys, cats, dogs, squirrels, etc.&nbsp; You name it, they had it for sale as a pet.&nbsp; Usually I would not be too into seeing caged up animals, but it was actually really nice.&nbsp; Seen as these animals are meal tickets for the people selling them they are actually well taken care of.&nbsp; I bought a bird to release at the old temple ruins as my good deed for the day.&nbsp; Kind of sad, but the bird (it was some kind of Finch, I think?) only cost 40 cents.&nbsp; Ok, now I'm just rambling on!&nbsp; So, to make a long story short, we have 1 more day in Yogja then we off back to Bali for 3 nights, then on to Australia.&nbsp; We're really looking forward to some "Western" culture for a while now.&nbsp; It's going to be a refreshing change I think.&nbsp; Although, Erin and I are both in agreement that we may come back to Indonesia after Oz and New Zealand to see some other places here.&nbsp; We've met a few people now that have told us that Borneo is amazing and also Banda Aceh in the north of Sumatra.&nbsp; I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tone_n_erin/1/1224218880/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tone_n_erin/1/1224218880/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tone_n_erin/1/1224218880/tpod.html Fri, 17 Oct 2008 00:50:10 -0400 Our Adventures in South East Asia and beyond.

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Amed, Bali, Indonesia

Day .......... Umm ........ a week from the last entry: It's Sunday today.&nbsp; I know this because we bought our ticket off the Island today.&nbsp; Another 5 hours back on the ferry and we're in Bali again.&nbsp; We decided to check out the east coast this time as we'd heard it was really nice.&nbsp; We got a shuttle bus to Amed.&nbsp; Found a Lonely Planet recommended place to stay, which actually turned out to be really nice.&nbsp; We're now at the Three Brothers Bungalows.&nbsp; Our first day here we rented another motor bike.&nbsp; It's so much fun and great to have the freedom to do or go wherever we want, whenever we want.&nbsp; Amed is renowned for its diving, snorkelling and small coastal village feel.&nbsp; It definitely lives up to its reputation.&nbsp; The snorkelling right out front of our hotel is excellent and the road that hugs the coast all the way to Amalapura (about an hour and a half drive) is spectacular!&nbsp; There are a number of bays, beaches and harbours along the way as the road winds up and down some pretty hairy terrain along the cliffs.&nbsp; The bike almost stalled out a few times trying to climb some of the hills.&nbsp; After getting used to a portion of the road that we always used to get to restaurants in a local village, I got a hang of how to negotiate the roads; drive like a maniac on the downward slopes in order to get enough speed to propel you up the hills.&nbsp; I thought it was great fun, but it took Erin a while to warm up to the idea :-) .&nbsp; There are some great temples and palaces around Amed.&nbsp; Our favourite was the water palace close to the city of Amalapura called Taman Tirta Gangga.&nbsp; It is a beautiful and tranquil place.&nbsp; You can actually stay in the original palace rooms there for a mere $400 U.S. / night!&nbsp; Just a little out of our budget.&nbsp; On our third day in Amed we took a snorkelling trip with one of the guys that works at our hotel (Wayan).&nbsp; He took us to a Japanese ship wreck just off the coast in a village not too far from Amed (maybe a ½ hour boat ride).&nbsp; It was brilliant!&nbsp; The wreck had turned into an artificial coral and was teeming with life.&nbsp; Erin and I were both in agreement that this was the best snorkelling we'd done to date.&nbsp; I've never seen so many fish and so many different species of fish in one area. &nbsp; Funnily enough, the day before, we happened to be looking at a tropical coral reef book that Erin grabbed from the hotel "book library".&nbsp; We were looking at all the different species of reef fish that there are and with no word of a lie I bet we saw 60% of them today in that one area.&nbsp; Wayan had a very original idea and effective sales pitch when he convinced us to go with him.&nbsp; The Indonesian fishing boats have a standard main hull section, but on either side of the boat they have these very long bamboo poles used as ballasts that stick out a good 2 meters from either side of the boat.&nbsp; After we got tired out from snorkelling at the wreck, he told Erin and I to hang onto these (one on either side to keep the boat balanced) and stick our heads in the water with our snorkel masks on while he drove the boat over top of the coral all the way back to our hotel.&nbsp; Lazy man snorkelling!&nbsp; It was brilliant!&nbsp; I felt like Kevin Costner from Waterworld, only without the gills!&nbsp; We gave our rental bike back tonight after one last cruise for dinner down the Amed coastal road.&nbsp; So, another 5 days just whizzed by!&nbsp; Tomorrow morning we are heading back to Kuta / Denpesar Airport.&nbsp; Yes, another change of plans.&nbsp; We're now going to the island of Java until our Indonesian visa runs out (Oct. 31st).
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tone_n_erin/1/1224217140/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tone_n_erin/1/1224217140/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tone_n_erin/1/1224217140/tpod.html Fri, 17 Oct 2008 00:22:14 -0400 Our Adventures in South East Asia and beyond.

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Gili Trawangan, West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia

Day ??: Well, I was wondering when this might happen...... I'm not quite sure what day it is anymore?&nbsp; Everyday feels like the weekend though, so I can't complain.&nbsp; What I do know is we spent 7 days on Gili Trawangan in Lombok.&nbsp; What a beautiful spot!&nbsp; White sand beaches, turquoise waters and amazing coral reefs!&nbsp; A soon as we got to the island it was like we already fit in.&nbsp; The locals there are super friendly and there are also a lot of ex-pats working at some of the dive shops there that are willing to lend a helping hand and point you in the right direction.&nbsp; Our first night we made the mistake of opting for a cheap hotel, which seemed ok when we checked it out at night.&nbsp; Little did we know that it backed onto a local family that must've had eighteen children and twenty chickens, all roosters.&nbsp; It was also close to the mosque.&nbsp; So at around 2am the roosters started.&nbsp; The back-up singers joined in around 5am playing from the loud speaker at the mosque, which woke the partridge family up for their morning prayers.&nbsp; Also, our French next door neighbours must have had quite the night out but wanted to be up early because their alarm was set for 7am and played repeatedly until 9am when they finally got up.&nbsp; Needless to say, I think Erin and I only got about a couple of hours sleep that night.&nbsp; So the next morning we found a new spot.&nbsp; The Black Sands Bungalows is where we ended up.&nbsp; It was a great spot.&nbsp; It had a TV and DVD player (with a complete DVD collection to choose from), concrete walls from floor to ceiling (essential when surrounded by confused roosters crowing at 2am onward) and a great family running the place.&nbsp; A much better hotel!&nbsp; We slept like babies the rest of our stay.&nbsp; We hung out with the owners' brother a couple of nights.&nbsp; His name was Jacka and he was into jamming guitar at any time of day.&nbsp; There was a tonne to do on the island.&nbsp; We ended up going on a snorkelling trip which went around all three of the Gili islands (Trawangan, Meno and Air).&nbsp; Each island has its own unique attributes.&nbsp; Trawangan had a beautiful coral reef.&nbsp; Bright vibrant coloured coral and tonnes of reef fish.&nbsp; Gili Meno is where you can see sea turtles.&nbsp; We actually saw seven!&nbsp; Gili Air is where you can dive down to see the giant clams.&nbsp; They were very cool!&nbsp; They were all different colours and would close shut if you wafted your hand in front of them.&nbsp; We ate lunch on Gili Air, but didn't actually set foot on Gili Meno, which is the most deserted of the three islands.&nbsp; Another day we rented bicycles and biked around the entire perimeter of Gili Trawangan (which only took around an hour and a half, but there were some great places to stop and swim along the way).&nbsp; We basically spent most of time relaxing on the beach and snorkelling in the ocean.&nbsp; We met a really nice Australian family while on our snorkelling trip that offered to let us stay at their place is Manly Beach (Sydney) when we get to Oz.&nbsp; We hung out with the son, Zeke, for a few party nights (Wednesday being the best party night on the island? .......... go figure!) and got pretty good pals with him, so we're totally taking them up on their offer.&nbsp; Unbelievable! &nbsp; I haven't met too many people so willing to offer to let someone come and stay at their place after only meeting them for one day.&nbsp; But hey, hopefully we'll learn from their generosity and return the favour ourselves, if the opportunity arises.&nbsp; After seven days of gluttony, beer drinking and laziness, we decided to head back to Bali (Really we just ran out of money as the only ATM on the island wasn't working.&nbsp; Probably for the best..... LoL).
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