Oz

The inevitable picture of the Sydney Opera House

43^o C

33^o C

These are new experiences for us.  We arrived in Sydney NSW Australia on the hottest day they have recorded.  We have never experienced 43^o C before except once when a sauna went postal.  What do you do at 43^o C?   Stay inside where the air-conditioner is working its little heart out, of course.

Thanks to my expert planning and foresight we came just shy of being able to do that.  We decided to catch the train from the airport to the hotel we had booked.  It looked like the right thing to do as the train ran from the airport every 15 minutes so it should be easy.  Air-conditioned airport to air-conditioned train to air-conditioned hotels.  Since we had been flying all night in cattle class with little or no sleep the next step was “air-conditioned sleep”.

The train ran from the airport every 15 minutes but it did not run to our hotel that often.  In fact it only ran near our hotel about every 2 hours or so.  In my wisdom I had chosen a hotel that was a long, long way out of the city.  When we boarded the train from the central station to our hotel we did not take into consideration a few things.  One:  there were 2 more transfers after central. Two:  there were one-half to three-quarters of an hour wait at each of those transfers.  Three: those waiting areas were outside in the sun.  Four: those trains were old, creaky, slow and NOT air-conditioned.  Five:  the closest stop to our hotel was 1 kilometer away – most of it across tarmac.  When we got to the hotel we were done.  I mean, “done” as in medium rare.  We had left the airport at 9 am and it was 1:30 pm when we arrived and, thankfully, they had our room ready.  We showered, ate and dropped into bed with our suitcases quietly steaming in the corner.

The choice of hotel was unfortunate in a couple of ways.   There was nowhere decent to eat near the hotel and they charged extra for sketchy Wi-Fi.  We were left with the choice of MacDonald’s or Hooters for both.   Hooters was expensive with very large portions and MacDonald’s was expensive with broken Wi-Fi. 

MacDonald’s expensive, you say?   Yup.  Everything is expensive in Australia.   It is not just because we came from Southeast Asia where the food budget for a week is around $5.00.  Lunch in the Hotel was $60.00 for 2 sandwiches and 2 salads; supper was $100.00 for 2 entrees that, really, would have fed one person.  MacDonald’s came to $15.00 each for burgers and fries.  Hopefully New Zealand will be cheaper.

About 1 km from our hotel was a ferry that took us to Circular Quay – the heart of tourism in Sydney.  It was a very pleasant ride that took about 45 minutes and the temperature had fallen to somewhere in the low 20’s.   We did the usual tourist thingys  - went to the Opera House and wandered around the tourist area.  It was very pleasant but nothing was awe-inspiring.  “Quaffable, but far from transcendent” to quote the movie “Sideways”.

Sydney reminds me a lot of Vancouver.  It is a big city on the waterfront with tall buildings and lots of underlying grime.  Where Vancouver has the 5 sails - Sydney has the Opera House.  Vancouver has the Lion’s Gate Bridge - Sydney has the Harbour Bridge.  Sydney is warm and friendly - Vancouver has mountains and mildew.

Telen making the Opera House look good!

We arrived in Cairns in northeast Australia.  Northeast in Australia means warmer, not colder.  It is a nice little city that reminds me a bit of Banff – except less Australians.   Cairns is pronounced “Ken’s”.  Since they are always putting shrimps on their Barbie’s here I am beginning to think Australia has some commercial deal with Mattel.

Cairns is the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef.  Basically it is a beach town with lots and lots of tourist excursions.  Again, it is not cheap.   We did some grocery shopping at the local mall and baffled the checkout clerk with our sobbing and whining.  The downtown area of Cairns is basically souvenir shops, surf shops and coffee shops.

The fruit here is incredible.   We went to the local market to get some mangos, pineapples and bananas.  All of it was locally grown and sooooooo good!   What we call mangos and pineapples back home bear no resemblance to the mangos and pineapples here.

The beach area is a mangrove forest that was cleared out and is not swimmable for 2 reasons: mud and crocodiles.  So they built a “lagoon” where everyone can go swimming and sunbathing and they have dozens of gas barbeques for cooking your lunch.  All of it free.  Can you imagine that in Canada?   The pool would be a soup of drunks, there would have to be a first-aid tent to deal with the burns and people would be complaining that the location is inconvenient. 

The "Lagoon" at Cairns.  Swimming pool, barbecue, sunbathing areas.  All free. This would cause SO much whining in Canada

Yesterday we took the bus to Palm Cove beach.  The water was 33^oC.  That is almost body temperature!  I am not sure it was refreshing but it sure was nice.  I have been in tropical water before but nothing as warm as this.  Again a new experience.

The beach at Palm Cove 

The Stinger Net to keep out the predators.  Doesn't work on two legged ones unfortunately

One does not have to worry about hypothermia here.  The big hazards are jellyfish and crocodiles.  The beach has an area that is protected by a “stinger” net to prevent the jellyfish from zapping people and crocs from having an afternoon snack.   I imagine the crocodiles swimming by thinking “ I hate this over-packaging!”

Things we don't worry about in Canada

Telen writes:

Although we have acclimatized to heat and humidity after being in SE Asia and Bali, the 43 degrees C temperature in Sydney was definitely a first for me.  It was like being inside an oven.  The thought of soaking in an outdoor pool was really appealing.  Thank goodness the hotel in Sydney had one.

My impression of the locals here is friendliness in everyone we had a conversation with.  Yes, restaurant foods here are very expensive, at least two or three times higher here than in Victoria.  The quality does not reflect the price unfortunately.  We had lunch in Cairns downtown a couple days ago.  I asked the server where the toilet was.  He said there is no toilet available in the café.  There is a public one around the corner about a block away BUT “it is very ugly…” He said it in such good humor that I wanted to laugh and felt ripped off at the same time.  We were charged almost $50 AUD for 2 salads and 2 mango smoothies and the restaurant has no toilet for the patrons?

I really enjoy the super warm ocean water and the local mangoes and pineapples.  Unfortunately I am currently healing from a couple of broken ribs after slipping on wet tiles in the bathroom in Bali.  My hope is that the pain will subside enough to permit snorkeling later in the week in the Great Barrier Reef.

    

Bali Bye!

Bali Girl.  Ok, it's Telen - Beautiful and Exotic

Bali is one of those places that seemed exotic and magical to me.  It always had the lure of mystery and fantasy.  In my mind it was white beaches, dense jungle, beautiful exotic women, and strange adventure.      

The beaches are more golden than white, the jungle is dense and the women are beautiful and exotic.  It has a feeling of magic about it.

But I think we came to Bali at the wrong time.

Things you don’t want on your beach holiday are rain, humidity, flies, and Russians.

Rain was probably the most obvious detractor.   If it rained only for an hour or so a day it would not be a problem.   It rained every day while we were there and, according to the locals, that is normal for this time of year.  My concern was the volume and duration of the rainstorms.  When it would rain it would pour or it would flood.  We had a few days where there were a few hours where it would only threaten to rain but almost no sunshine at all. 

When it wasn’t raining it was extremely hot and humid.   Hot is good on a beach holiday. Humidity? - not so much.  The problem with humidity is that you cannot cool down.  Perspiration does not work because the margin between your perspiration and the air is poorly defined. Perspiration does not evaporate. It accumulates.  You get soaked whether it rains or not.

The humidity and the rain bring with it another aggravation.  Flies.  Flies love perspiration!  Heat and humidity: this is a win-win situation for the flies.  The flies rocket in on anyone who dares to show a trace of skin to have a little sip of perspiration.  I don’t begrudge them the perspiration – I certainly have plenty to share – but I do begrudge them the tickling.  When you are chilling out with a book in those rare moments of no rain it is very irritating to have little fly feet running all over you, not to mention the slurping sounds.  Flies have no manners.

Speaking of which.  Bali seems to be the “Hawaii” for Russians.  I know, I know, I am stereo-typing (typing with both hands…) but my experience with the Russians so far has not been positive.  In Laos they stole our breakfast and then said that they had been there first so it was theirs.  In Bangkok I got into a shoving match with a Russian man who slapped my hand away from the door to the toilet stall so he could barge in.  We had a group of Russians arrive next door to us in Bali and proceed to celebrate their arrival by getting stinking drunk, banging the doors, jumping in the pool and screaming at each other at full volume.  Normally that would only be a mild annoyance except that they arrived at 3 am.   Telen was shouldered aside by a young Russian boy who wanted to get into the washroom before her and then invited all his friends in to do their thing.  The Balinese locals, who are probably the most tolerant of all people, shake their heads when we mention the Russians.   But they like their Rubles.

Having said all that Bali is still exotic and magical.   If you look closely, though, the magic has a little taint of capitalism.  Bali is the richest province of Indonesia.  The reason for that is us…  tourism!  Just in our little hotel alone there were tourists from Germany, eastern Europe, Russia, and Japan.  Which explains why no one ever smiled… except the Balinese…  Having all the tourists around with excess cash hanging out of their pockets just begs for tacky T-shirt sales.  There are a million little shops dotted all along the street all selling the same things.  The vendors in theses shops are always accosting you to buy something from them.  They are warm, friendly and persistent.  Very persistent.   As you walk down the street you are constantly bombarded by warm Balinese smiles accompanied by words of greeting such as “Massage?” “Transport?” “Shopping?”  Strangely they all seem to sound like English words.

We did go to the coffee plantation where they produce the Luwak coffee - the most expensive coffee in the world.  The reason it is so expensive is the processing.  The Luwak is a type of weasel who eats the coffee cherries and poops out the beans.  The beans are then collected (I don’t want to know how), cleaned (thank goodness) and roasted to make the famous “weasel” or Luwak coffee.   Apparently in Thailand they are attempting to do the same thing using elephants.   I can see the advantages – elephants eat a lot more than Luwaks and, as the old saying goes: “You eat a lot, you poop a lot”.  The one disadvantage that I see is that handling an elephant that is irritable, cranky and hasn’t slept well has to be more difficult than a weasel.

The poor wide-awake, agitated and cranky Luwak

The cocoa pod - this is where chocolate comes from.

I tried the Luwak coffee for a mere 50,000 per cup.  Which works out to about $5.00 Canadian.  I know that this is where I should be making all kinds of puns about how crappy the coffee tasted but I won’t.  To tell you the truth – I could not tell much of a difference between the Luwak coffee and the regular Balinese coffee.  So, in spite of the sales pressure, I did not invest some hundreds of dollars for a pound of Luwak coffee.  As I was leaving I could see the Luwak looking at me with signs of relief in his staring eyes.

We stopped at Ubud – the place made famous by Julia Roberts in her film “Eat, Pray, Love.  The ultimate “chick-flick”.  This is where all the artwork such as jewelry making, woodcarving, batik and painting comes from – as well as the famous Balinese dancing.  It is the cultural center of Bali as compared to the cultural fringe in Kuta - where the Australians come to be offensive.  It actually looks like Sanur (where we are) with tons of shops all selling the same things – just more of them.

We went up to see the volcano at Kintamani. It felt like we were driving up a river.  The road was completely inundated and, since it was on a slope, it was rushing down.  The rain was hammering down and the visibility was so poor I am pretty sure our driver was navigating by recall.  Great, I thought, we get to see a spot on the road where, when the God was willing, the volcano has once been seen.   We stopped at a restaurant and as we sat down the rain stopped, the clouds parted, the trumpets blew and, lo and behold, there was a faint outline of a volcano.  During lunch the visibility improved to the point where it was possible to actually see the volcano.  When we finished lunch – the rain started up and the volcano was turned off.

The Volcano at Kintamani.  

In spite of my griping Bali was a good experience.  The people are friendly and smile easily.  I would imagine that in their dry season things would be more pleasant and there would be less Russians and more Australians.  Certainly that would mean less rudeness and more smiles although probably no less emesis.  If we had made Bali our holiday destination we would probably have been very disappointed but since it was a stopover between Asia and Australia it was ok.

Telen writes:

After the intense cultural experience in Indochina, I found Bali to be rather mediocre.  Don’t get me wrong, Bali is beautiful with warm sunny weather when its not raining.  The island however is very touristy with aggressive vendors who would stop you at every block.

We took a day tour to the interior of the island as I really wanted to visit Ubud.  Yes, I read the book “Eat, pray and love” and watched the movie starring Julie Roberts.  Unconsciously I had this image in my head that Ubud would look like scenes in the movie i.e. small villages with children running around.  I definitely did not see signs to take one to see the local priest for word of wisdom.  We saw more souvenir shops, cafes and lots of tourists crowding along narrow streets.  The rice paddy terraces were beautiful but oddly we had to pay an entrance fee.  The drive up to the volcano was interesting to say the least.  Rain was pouring down so hard that water was running down the pavement like river.

Telen and me at the rice paddies

The rice paddies by themselves...

What I struck me the most about Bali is how Hindu spiritual practices have woven into people’s daily lives.  Our tour guide, Wayan, explained that every day, each family and business would lay out an offering to the Gods.  The offering looks like a little square tray made with coconut leaves, containing flowers, rice and sometimes incense sticks.  The trays were visible on the pavements in front of every shop in Bali.  Every 15 days and every month, a more major offering would be done at local temples.  On our return to Sanur at the end of the day tour, Wayan pointed out the beautifully dressed ladies balancing a huge basket on their heads making their way to the temple to make offerings.  There are numerous celebratory days in the year e.g. day of iron to pay gratitude for having all kinds of tools to use, day of education, day to honor rice, etc.

For Rand, he repeatedly mumbled that he missed the eager hands of the Asian girls stroking his hairy shoulders.  “I am not popular anymore”!

  

Bali hi!

We have surfaced from Southeast Asia and have crawled ashore on Bali.

We were in mid-winter in Southeast Asia and the weather was very warm and dry but the temperatures were just shy of unbearable.  Somehow or other we crossed the equator and arrived in Bali in mid-summer aka the rainy season.

a view of the volcano from the beach near our hotel

This is the slow season in Bali for a couple of reasons.  When I mean slow I am not referring to the pace which Balinese move.  I don’t think I have seen people who move slower.  It is like all the turtles that died got reincarnated as Balinese. 

The first reason is that the majority of their tourist comes from Australia.  Australia is just heading into summertime so no one has a reason to come to Bali.  How many people go to Hawaii or Mexico from Canada in mid-summer?  None of the sane ones do.

The second reason is the humidity. This explains both the slowness of the business and slowness of the locals. The boundary between the ocean and the air is a bit blurred right now.  I think I saw a Russian submarine drifting above the hotel two nights ago but it was New Year’s Eve, so I am not 100% sure.  One of the things about humidity is that it is a very small step from water in the atmosphere to water falling from the atmosphere.  You go from feeling wet and sticky to being just plain wet very quickly.  We have had thunderstorms daily and they are spectacular.  There is lightning followed by thunder with no perceptible gap.  I think that means the lightning is right here, right now which is NOT a comfortable thought.

The Rain in Bali.  This is the road outside our hotel.  Notice Telen's feet are not visible.

High humidity brings other problems.   They are called flies.  These flies are not biters. They are annoyers.  They land on you in tickly little flocks and, I think, drink your sweat.  Unlike mosquitoes, which love Telen, these flies seem attracted to me. Flies love the smell of excrement or dead meat.  So the flies are both annoying and very uncomplimentary.

I am mourning the loss of my newfound sexiness.  In Southeast Asia women found me to be attractive.  No one really knows why.  Research is being done.  Here in Bali I am just one of a myriad of old, overweight westerners.  It is demoralizing when you discover that your attractiveness is no longer to women but to flies.

Our first experience with the beach here was not good.  The water was full of garbage.  It was mostly plastic bags but Telen did come across the seat from a car.  The water here is almost body-temperature and to have plastic bags with undisclosed content floating by is just creepy. Apparently during the rainy season garbage come down the river and empties into the ocean and, if the current is right, it drifts to the beaches.  After that I was thinking that we might change our plans but I was willing to give it another try.

Our first visit to the beach.  There is lots more of this in the water.

The next day, when we went to the beach, it was immaculate.  I am not sure how.  The water was clean and the jetsam on the beach was gone.  I have this image in my mind of a horde of Balinese sweeping along the beach picking up all the garbage and hauling it to the dump up the river… 

Bali is one of the richest provinces in Indonesia thanks to tourism.  It is certainly a contrast to Southeast Asia.  In Southeast Asia it was rare to see anyone who was overweight – other than myself, of course.  Here it is not as common as in Canada, but it happens.  We also see people wearing glasses and having braces on their teeth.  Both of those things are way too expensive for people in SE.

Balinese people are very warm and friendly.  They always want to chat with you and one of the first question is “where are you from?” and second one is “how many children do you have?”  They ask questions that we, in our cool and distant society, would consider invasive.  They do it with such charming smiles and such warmth that it feels more like they want you to be their friend rather than being nosy.  They don’t seem to put on a façade like we do at home.  They let you know how they feel rather than pretend everything is “just fine, thank you”.

At the New Years party, put on by the hotel, the staff was having a better time than the guest.  All of us stiff westerners were sitting properly in our chairs trying to loosen up by drinking loads of booze. In contrast the hotel staff were singing and laughing and “groovin’” to the music.  They were relaxed, sober and unselfconscious and very obviously enjoying themselves.

A young soft-spoken Scot that we met, named David, asked the band if he could play some music with them.  I thought, “Oh great – someone who thinks he is a great Karaoke singer is going to get up there and do a cringe-worthy Frank Sinatra song”.  I could not have been more wrong.  David transformed into Elvis and the audience transformed into a swarm.  The whole audience stormed the dance floor and the staff was frenziedly pulling tables back to make room.   I could see the band looking at David speculatively and thinking that maybe they should have played that kind of music initially…

So far Bali has shown us her moist side.  The humidity is high, the rains torrential and the perspiration is continuous.  The ocean is warm and wet but so is the air so there is some ambiguity about which one you are in.  However, she has also shown us a hint of her beauty as well – the lush jungle, the sandy beaches, the magical evenings and the unique culture.  The bugs, the bats, the frogs and the flowers all add a feeling of the exotic. 

Ok, maybe not the bugs – they just add a feeling of crankiness.

Telen writes:

I managed for once to stay awake for the New Year’s midnight gong because the Balinese sure knows how to celebrate.  For 2 days before New Year’s Eve, we watched workers setting up an elaborate stage near the back of the hotel dining room, along with all the special lightings and stage decorations.  The evening started off with a buffet, featuring a roasted suckling pig (an Indonesian specialty).

The Suckling Pig.  Notice the resemblance to Rand?

Then, the entertainment started.  We were treated to a number of traditional dances accompanied by a dozen musicians playing various Indonesian instruments.  I really enjoyed watching these dances even though I did not understand most of the symbolism.

Rand demonstrating how NOT to do traditional Balinese dancing.  

  Later, another band came on stage, playing western music.  The lead singer had a very beautiful voice but the songs just did not seem to arouse the audience to get up and dance…until our Scottish friend Dave played Elvis!  After midnight had arrived, we heard lots of fireworks outside.  Indeed, it lasted for a good half hour.  Apparently fireworks are very cheap here.  The locals just love them whenever there is an opportunity.  Interestingly, I read that on Bali, there is a festival or celebration almost every day somewhere on the island since there are many Gods in Hindu culture.  One of them is called Nyepi, meaning a “day of silence”.  Nyepi is the Hindu New Year, usually falls some time in March.  For 24 hours from 6 am to 6 am next day, the entire Bali population observes silence.  There will be no work, no traffic on the streets except for medical emergencies.  People would fast, meditate, and reflect.  Use of electricity is kept to a minimum.  Tourists are to stay in their hotel rooms that day.  For 2013, Nyepi will be on March 12.  Thank goodness we will be gone by then!