Leaving Asia for Aoteoroa

SYDNEY
The flight from Bali was only 5 hours so there wasn’t much time to sleep especially considering the time taken to serve food and drinks. We arrived in Sydney completely exhausted at 7am to beautiful bright sunshine that wasn’t to leave us for the next two days. My oldest brother Jeff picked us up from the airport and we spent the rest of that day catching up with him, his wife Julie and their 14 month old bundle of joy, Chelsea. We were spoiled rotten the whole time to the point that Julie had baked a lemon meringue pie and cooked roast lamb especially for our visit. The following day Jeff drove us to see the Opera House, Harbour Bridge, Darling Harbour etc and then to their almost finished new home in Castle Hill. The drive back took us through the northern beaches, stopping in Manly to let Chelsea run in the sand in her squeaky shoes. The stay in Sydney was all too short and before we knew it, Sunday morning had come around and it was time to catch our flight to New Zealand.

 The Sydney opera house

 Sara and I at Darling Harbour

Sara and I with our niece Chelsea at Manly beach

STRAIGHT TO THE RUGBY
Coming from New Zealand means that I have rugby in my blood. Within 30 minutes of landing in Wellington Sara and I found ourselves at WestPac Trust Stadium watching the Wellington Lions beat Taranaki in, what felt like, sub-zero temperatures. It was in fact 15C (or about 60F).

Wellington v Taranaki at the Cake Tin

 There's no friends like old friends

We have now had a couple of days to get acclimatised to the cooler weather and to enjoy many of the creature comforts that we had been longing for in Asia. The remainder of this week will be spent catching up with my close friends, playing some golf and watching some of the DVDs we purchased along the way. On Sunday afternoon we drive 4 hours north to the ski town of Ohakune where we plan to spend the following two weeks.

Borobudur and Prambanan, Indonesia

JAVA TO BALI
My last update took us through to Yogyakarta. We booked ourselves on the sunrise bus to Borobudur and even though we had to get up at 4am it was well worth the effort. In fact it was probably the scenic highlight of the trip so far, partly due to the brilliant sunrise and the awesome landscape around the temple. It’s the largest Buddhist temple on Java and we spent the best part of two hours just sitting there admiring it with large smiles on our faces.

Images from Borobudur

Next, we went to Prambanan – the largest Hindu temple on Java. Prambanan is much larger than Borobudur but there is still much restoration work to be done. It’s still a remarkable sight but it has the potential to be far more remarkable.

Images from Prambanan

We had really enjoyed Yogyakarta despite some early apprehensions. It was well set up for backpackers with plenty of cheap places to stay and eat. On our way out of the city we were serenaded by the guitar playing buskers at the traffic lights as we headed east towards Bali. We were joined in our minivan by three stereotypically blonde Norwegian girls, two German sisters and an Italian Swiss guy from Lugano. We spent much of that day in the van except for a brief lunch break and a 90 minute pit stop to repair a leaky radiator. At 10pm that evening we arrived at Mt Bromo and went straight to sleep because at 3.30am we were up again to see the sunrise for the second time in three days, this time over the glorious Mt Bromo.

Mt Bromo at sunrise

After breakfast we hit the road again, this time to Bali. Another long travel day saw us reach Bali late in the evening, where we headed straight to Kuta Beach for one night before bringing a close to Asian leg of our trip.

Yogyakarta, Indonesia

NO STOPPING IN BATAVIA
In one of the more brilliant moves of our trip, we landed and smartly left Jakarta (Ah, but it will always be Batavia to me) within two hours. We are now firmly entrenched in Central Java and despite any preconceptions about the safety here or the attitude towards tourists we have been warmly welcomed by the locals who seem to be well impressed with my brand of humour. On the bus from the airport to the train station I was the last passenger to board the bus and was confined to sitting in the aisle with the luggage. Soon into the trip the driver pulled over to collect the fare from each passenger and had a bugger of a time clambering over the various backpacks and suitcases. I offered to collect the money on his behalf, and take a cut for myself, but when he refused I offered to catch him as he jumped the obstacles in his way. It was very lighthearted and helped us to both overcome any anxiety we might of had. Our catch phrase for this leg of the trip is that we must be "cautious but not paranoid" but this is an attitude that we have employed ever since day one. We are now on day 100+.

YIKES, ANOTHER OVERNIGHT TRAIN RIDE
The train ride was pleasant although I managed to disturb many of those sitting around me courtesy of the bean burrito I had for lunch earlier that day. Not even the aromatherapy spays throughout the carriage could mask the smell and I was worried that our friendly welcoming was about to turn sour. Thankfully the odour seemed to lull the passengers into a coma-like sleep and it wasn't until 4am when we were woken with breakfast that it became obvious that I was the culprit. Once off the train I was quick to merge into the crowd. This was the first overnight train that was not a sleeper but the seats were big enough and reclined just far enough to create the illusion of a place where satisfying sleep was possible.

I usually ignore the touts at train and bus stations at first as a method of slowly trying to gain some familiarity of my surroundings. At 4.30am and still somewhat drugged by my own natural aroma we had a couple of very confusing conversations between ourselves before deciding to engage the only tout in the train station in some form of meaningful banter. He proved to be extremely helpful but far too talkative for the state of mind we were both in. We happily followed him as he took us to a couple of guesthouses - where we accepted the cheapest one and fell straight to sleep without having to perform the regular hostel orthodoxy of checking in first. A big thanks to Air France for not only successfully delivering both pieces of our checked on luggage but also for supplying earplugs and sleeping masks which we made use of straight away.

Inside the Kraton (Royal Palace) in Yogyakarta

Not sure what these guys were playing but looked like fun

BIG DAY TOMORROW
Tomorrow we are scheduled to see the second of the big three temples in SE Asia - Borobudur (the other two are Angkor in Cambodia and Bagan in Myanmar). We have to be up at 4.30am in time to see the sunrise so we are both hoping that unlike Angkor we actually get to see the 'sun' this time. On Tuesday we make our way further towards Bali to spend the night at the base of Mt Bromo, ready for another early morning assault in search of seeing lava flows at dawn. It is all going by so fast.

Special shout out to Johnny D'Arcy in Kathmandu - keep the updates coming. There's your mention!

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Singapore

OUT OF MALAYSIA
It was hard to tear ourselves away from the great shopping in Kuala Lumpur but we had to get moving again but this time only two hours down the road to the old Portuguese settlement of Melacca. We enjoyed a relaxing day there but with Sara starting to feel much better I began to get prickly heat over my back and legs, probably due from the heat and humidity - the combination of which I am still not completely used to. Unfortunately my lovely tan is tempered with red spots. Sara's tan is ever so subtle but she is mighty proud of it and reminds me constantly how brown she is. CENSORED: In all honesty though, she is still the same colour as my bottom.

Melacca

SINGAPORE SLING
Now we find ourselves very close to the equator and about to cross it tomorrow. Singapore is a nice place but it's no time to waste if you're on a budget. This is by far the most expensive internet cafe we have used on our trip so we are limiting our time to only an hour. We have only one night here which gives us enough time to see Raffles and the waterfront before flying over the equator to Jakarta tomorrow afternoon. We managed to hastily arrange a cheap flight so thankfully we can avoid the rodent infested boats across to Sumatra. Again our plan is not to stay in Jakarta long either as the main attraction is Borobudur and Prambanan in the center of Java.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

ANOTHER OVERNIGHT BUS
The overnight bus, our third of the trip, from Kota Bharu to Kuala Lumpur traveled at frightening speeds for most of the journey and got us to our required destination at the inconvenient hour of 5am on Tuesday morning. Our driver paid little attention to the comfort of his passengers and on our arrival we were both disheveled and slightly grumpy after been thrown around our seats for eight hours. Thankfully the kind folk at the Pudu Hostel in KL allowed us to sleep on their comfortable couches for a few hours before our room was ready, but we were more excited about the hot showers. As with any new city we did a compulsory stroll around for a few hours to get our bearings. We were both immediately impressed with Kuala Lumpur - very clean and one of the most modern cities we had seen.

OF MONKEYS AND CHINESE
Today we climbed the 272 steps to the Batu Caves, 13km north of Kuala Lumpur, stopping along the way to take photographs and feed the monkeys. At the top of the stairs I pulled out my bag of artificially flavoured chicken corn snacks and began feeding a few of the female monkeys with small babies. Before long I commanded a small audience of monkeys and Chinese tourists. I had fun trying to feed a couple of Chinese women but I found the monkeys far more polite and easier to talk to. One of the more confident monkeys, not happy with being fed one snack at a time, grabbed the bag and a handful of snacks causing the monkeys to become aroused and the women absolutely psychotic with fear. During this time an extremely boisterous Chinese man wearing nothing but a pair of tight blue shorts, white socks and black loafers was striding up and down the stairs no fewer than 12 times, each time making a point of telling everybody how many times he had completed the journey. He tried to recruit other hapless tourists to join him in his crusade but by the time we left he was still traveling solo and proudly informing anyone who would listen of his deeds. I offered him an artificially flavoured chicken corn snack, but he refused.

Butterfly gardens in Kuala Lumpur

THE WORLDS TALLEST BUILDING
We met some family friends for lunch at a swish country club and then visited the Petronas Towers (from the movie Entrapment, Sean Connery, Catherine Zeta-Jones) and walked across the bridge between the two buildings. Only about 20 people are permitted to visit the walkway at any one time and the visits are limited to no more than ten minutes but that was enough time to get some good photographs and to wonder at the fact that we were standing on a bridge between two buildings, 140m above street level. Depending on the measurement criteria these are the tallest buildings in the world but somehow they didn't seem that massive. The viewing area and walkway are on the 41st floor of the 88 story buildings so the viewing level is not as high as say the Sears Tower in Chicago.

Good friends of my parents - Gendi & Jit

The Petronas Towers

 Me on the bridge between the two towers

ONE WEEK TO GO
We have about a week left in Asia so we are busy shopping and making sure we have got about as much as we can carry. Sara now has a different handbag for each day of the week and I have more CDs than I could ever listen to - but I'll try.

Kota Bharu, Malaysia

PERHENTIAN ISLANDS
In one of my last updates I went on about how cool Boracay Island in the Philippines was. Well we beat that hands down. Returning from 4 days on the Perhentian Island of Kecil in Malaysia, it made Hawaii look like South Padre Island, TX. It did take a while to get to this paradise, leaving Georgetown for a scenic drive through the central jungle highlands of Malaysia (and a first time we have ever seen a sign for wild elephant crossings) arriving in the city of Kota Bharu 8 hours later. The ferry to the Islands run three times a day, the last one being 4:00pm. Having missed the last one we arranged to leave at 10:00am the following morning with a lovely young couple John and Laura, students at Durham University.

I was impressed that the ferry driver could fit 26 adults and our bags in a boat that normally would hold 8 comfortably, but the sea was smooth and the ride uneventful. We chose Long Beach on the Island of Kecil for our short stay. We were able to find a modest A-frame bungalow in the center of the beach for about $10 a night. Our companions, who have an envious 2 week stay on the island, checked into the Moonlight Chalets on the north end of the beach in nicer digs. Life was hard. Opening our door the beach was no more than 10 meters away and the ocean as calm and blue as you could ever imagine. We spent the first day reading or lounging, but mostly standing in the calm sea waters to escape the midday heat.

Our A-Frame on the beach

Eating was simple, just about every restaurant (10 total) serve the same menu at the same price. The method of selection is based upon what movie they restaurant shows that evening. Since it rains each evening at 8:30pm sharp restaurants usually show a new release and then a second popular movie, such as the new Austin Powers, or Star Wars II, etc. BUSY DAY

Our beach on Kecil

It was hassle free because no one tries to sell you anything, no watches, to tours no nothing. No one coming up to us while we ate, or were on the beach. All activities are clearly posted in front of the shops and if you want to join in you just walk up. We chose to go snorkeling on our second day. Meeting after breakfast at the polite hour of 10:30am with John and Laura we joined 4 other people for a tour of 5 locations around the two islands. The first coral garden had colorful parrot fish, clown fish, Angel fish, and many others - some the size of a small child. A local school had about 50 children there swimming - I noticed that they tended to stay close to their boat. The second location was a turtle garden. We thought they would be small maybe a foot long. Not the 4 and 5+ foot long turtles. There were probably about 10 in total hanging out. After feeding on the bottom for a bit, they swim to the surface for air, and that is when you can swim next to them. Being a strong swimmer, Ian was able to dive under probably 20 feet and swim next to one while it surfaced. Our next site, was Shark point where the black tip reef shark hang out. That is a shark that would normally appear on a menu. I ended up turning back to the boat because a small school of jelly fish floated through the area, and I didn't want to dodge them all. The rest of our group had to swim back through after seeing two small sharks. The last couple of sites were more impressive than the first. Our boat driver often diving in to show us a cool location or to feed the fish. The whole adventure was at our leisure.

Sara heading to the north end of the beach on Kecil

That afternoon we relaxed on the beach once again and Ian joined in a game of beach football that was played every evening around 5. Our bungalow also had a couple of playful kittens that made the afternoon rounds. My favorite had ginger banding around his front legs and gray banding around his hind legs. It appeared that he had his tail bobbed while he was still quite young, and I think I found out how. There was an enormous Monitor Lizard that grazed in the garbage behind our complex. She was easily 5 feet from head to tail and so thick around the middle she was either pregnant or had just consumed one of the local kids.

Beach football

Monitor lizard

I will put the Perhentian Islands #1 on my list of recommended vacations spots. And I know we will be back.

Bangkok, Thailand to Georgetown, Malaysia

ONE NIGHT IN BANGKOK
On our last night in Bangkok Sara was poorly. And this happened right after we had phoned our respective parents to say that all is well. In the two days since then everything has been fine, helped by various drugs including Cipro and Imodium and plenty of water. We both have suffered from upset stomachs at various times during the trip but Sara has been affected more recently, whereas I was ill in week two. My last serious incident in the Philippines could have been precipitated by 3 Pina Coladas and 15 assorted shots - it 'could' have been, I'm not convinced though.

ANOTHER OVERNIGHT TRAIN
At around noon today our train pulled into Butterworth in northern Malaysia, 22 hours after leaving Haulamphong Station in Bangkok. It sounds rough but the train ride was superb. Thai trains have loads of room, especially compared to the Chinese carriages, and we both slept very well after playing endless games of backgammon and playing hide and seek with a little Thai boy in a Spiderman outfit. The border crossing was very smooth and unlike the Eastern European system we had to leave the train with all of our luggage to pass through immigration and then return to our seats once the formalities were complete. Another new country for the both of us and for me an exciting one because my parents lived in Malaysia in the 1960s and both of my brothers have passed through in the last year or so.

Me by the Malaysian flag

 Sara looking poorly in Malaysia

PENANG
Georgetown, on the island of Penang, is just across the channel from Butterworth and that is where we are spending tonight but early tomorrow morning we catch a bus to the other side of the peninsular and a small town called Kota Bharu. It's not that we don't like Penang but we need to keep moving if we are to make our flight out of Bali in a few weeks time.