Stop #7 Trat & Ko Chang

After a night stay at a Swedish guesthouse in Phuket, our ears were clear enough to fly to Trat via Bangkok. Our flight from Bangkok to Trat was quite delayed, so we decided to stay one night in Trat before taking the ferry to Ko Chang.



We stayed at Pop's Guesthouse in Trat. It was really quite lovely. The owners were extremely helpful and made everything so easy.



The next morning Billy had a Thai massage while I relaxed a bit. My plans of relaxing in an air conditioned cafe were bunked due to a neighborhood blackout (caused by some fire related activity a few doors down, but we only saw fire engines, never smoke). We then took the ferry over to the island.



While waiting for a taxi to take us to the resort, the clouds rolled in, thunder began to roar and soon a DELUGE began. We were seated in the back of a taxi-truck... so 12 people in the back of a truck w/ luggage, with the people seated nearest the front getting soaked from rain coming through the area between the windshield and the roof/canopy, and the people seated at the back getting soaked from rain off the roof! We were seated in the middle, so we didn't get that wet. But it was amazing!

We settled into Penny's Guesthouse and had a dip in the lovely pool before getting some dinner and heading to bed.

Similan Islands Dive Trip -- More pictures

Here are the photos taken by Danny who was one of the divers in our group. He took some fantastic pictures and movies. The best pictures have been added to the end of our dive trip photos in this album:

http://picasaweb.google.com/kersti.miller/200903DiveTripSimilanIslandsThailand?authkey=Gv1sRgCNDTk_Sf3puvAQ&feat=directlink

When we get to the states we'll show you the videos he took of the manta, devil and eagle rays. They are huge files, so unfortunately we can't post them!

Similan Islands Dive Trip

See the first half of our dive pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com/kersti.miller/200903DiveTripSimilanIslandsThailand?authkey=Gv1sRgCNDTk_Sf3puvAQ&feat=directlink

We bought a CD with professional pictures of the trip, including underwater photos -- and we have lots of pictures from our friend Danny that we met on the boat. He was in our group and took heaps of great shots of the manta rays and other cool creatures. Will upload those pictures soon!

Just another beautiful sunset...

Our dive boat, the Black Manta

Sunning in the early evening on the top deck

A curious and friendly Hawskbill Turtle came over to be photographed.

Our dive trip was fantastic! The water was calm, the boat was very luxurious (for a dive boat), the crew was very kind, capable and helpful, the food was delicious, the diving was pretty spectacular, and the islands were beautiful. Could we have asked for more?! They even gave us massages for $20/hour ;) Yes, I took them up on that!

Billy did all 14 dives of the trip, while I skipped 2 night dives and only did 12. It was a lot of diving... 4 each day, with 2 on the last day. We dove at a new place each time, but the islands were close together so there wasn't much travelling. We dove at Richelieu Rock, which is one of the premo spots in the world.

Here are some highlights...

• We saw HUGE, I mean, really, really big manta rays. They were 3 meters across and came amazingly close to us. We must have seen 5 while under the water, and a couple more from the dive deck. Billy saw a smaller one (2m) just while snorkeling! They are curious rays, often circling us to get a second look.
  
• Once we came over a ridge and held onto the edge of the rock (very strong current) to watch a white tipped shark swim around in circles. After a minute or two the shark swam off and immediately a big (2.5 m) eagle ray swam into the scene.
  
• Leopard Sharks
  
• There was heaps of purple soft coral that was so elegant.
• Big fat moray eels (4)
• Tiny sea horses (Tigertails)
• Hawkesbill turtles
• Heaps of interesting fish... schools of blue surgeon fish, giant barricuda, some lion fish, Parrot fish, long finned bat fish, octupuses, Kohl's stingrays, Giant Trevally, seal faced pufferfish, box fix, unicorn fish, sea cucumbers, scorpionfish
• Delicate whip coral, staghorn coral
  

They served meals after each dive, which were SO good. It was the best food of the trip thus far. All was spicy and delicious. The desserts at tea time (after dive #3) were so good... sticky rice w/ mango, mango custard filled buns, dim sum... and we always had fresh fruit (dragon fruit, papaya, watermelon, pineapple).

The only not so good part of the trip (besides not seeing a whale shark) was that we re-created a scene from that horror movie, Open Water. We had started a dive around 5:30pm, so dusk was setting in. We had flashlights - but it wasn't a night dive. Anyway, they dropped us in the ocean and our group started the descent. There was a strong current so we quickly drifted from the boat. We descended slower than the group because Billy was taking his time equalising (our dive guide was well informed that Billy was slower to equalise, and we had already done 3 dives with him). Anyway, the visibility was poor and all we could see around us was green, plankton filled water... but we could see the bubbles generated by our group members. All of a sudden, the bubbles disappeared and we couldn't see our group. I immediately wanted to surface. Billy though wanted to give it a minute, so we waited about 45 seconds, looked around everywhere. Finally he agreed to go up... we were at about 16 meters so we did a safety stop for 3 minutes at 5 meters and surfaced.

We were so far from the boat and they couldn't see us! The water was choppy--the only time of the trip actually. The waves were small - maybe 1,5 meters, so nothing huge, but it definitely restricted visibility. We started swimming towards the boat, but we couldn't move very fast with our super crappy rental fins. With the current, we were probably going backwards. At this point I started to flip out. I was not a happy camper! But Billy kept me quasi calm. We stopped trying to swim and I took off my fin and started waving it around as best I could. Eventually they spotted us and a small boat came to pick us up... But OH MY GOD I WAS TERRIFIED! So that's why I decided not to risk it again with the next 2 night dives. No thanks.

The reason we got lost from the group was the current was much less at the deeper depths, so while we took our time descending, we drifted from the group. The guide went back up without doing a safety stop, so he surfaced much faster than us. In hindsight, perhaps we shouldnt' have done the safety stop because that caused us to drift even further from the boat. But I didn't want decompression sickness! But I guess for that short of a dive we could have gotten away with it. But my computer told me to do it, so I did. Anyway... it was an adventure.

Stop #6 Similan Islands, Thailand

We're both happy to be in Thailand! We have arrived in Phuket and are waiting for our dive captains to pick us up! Tonight we head onto the Black Manta for a 5 day trip. I think we'll be doing enough diving to last us a while... 4 dives a day! Yikes! But hopefully that will increase our odds of seeing a whale shark! Keep your fingers crossed ;) And also keep your fingers crossed for calm seas...

Note -- we won't be back online until at the earliest 28-Mar, so don't hold your breath! All is well, though.

Cheers!

Stop #5 Kuala Lumpur

This entry will remain brief because we have very little to say about KL that is remotely positive. After being in the country less than 10 minutes, our daypack was stolen right from under my nose (me=kersti). Classic - so frustrating - and so avoidable on our part. We just dropped our guard. Anyway, it was rotten.

So we tried to enjoy ourselves -- we went to the bird park and to the Batu Caves. But everywhere we went it was dirty, disgusting and people took (or tried to take) advantage of us. The redeeming factor of KL was our hotel pool... lovely ;) It turns out that Billy and I are exactly the same speed. We raced twice and tied both times. Later on, when we looked at the pool from above, we realised that it wasn't square and that I swam a slightly longer distance. We shall have to re-do the competition at another date.

Okay, enough about KL. We shall never return!

But the bad thing is... we lost all of our Bali and Singapore pictures... we never uploaded them because we were (a) stupid and (b) had something better to do and/or (c) the internet was too slow. Sad.

Singapore (cont)

The next morning we went off to the Asia Civilisations Museum (after a quick stop at the train station to buy tickets). It is in a beautiful old colonial style building and features those cultures which are prominent in Singapore. Afterwards we walked around Boat Quay and back towards a shopping district. We had indian/asian fusion for lunch, which was really delicious.

In the afternoon we went to the Raffles Hotel for afternoon tea and cake. It is a gorgeous, gorgeous building... it's a white structure that exudes british colonialism and wealth. As mear tourists we weren't allowed inside the lobby, but we snuck a peak past the Raj-era dressed doorman. It is at the Raffles where you see a disproportionate amount of caucasians! It was strange how I really noticed that.

We saw a doorman dressed just like this guy... maybe it was the same dude?

To try a Singapore Sling (invented at the Raffles), we went upstairs to their Long Room bar. But we were tourned off by the atmosphere and decided to head across the road to the Chijmera development. If we lived in Singapore, we would love to frequent that place. It has an inner courtyard, facing the back of a catholic church, with bars and restaurants lining a beautiful, tree-covered square. Quite lovely. And as we were the only 2 people at the bar (5pm on a Saturday--low key time I guess!) the bar tender paid extra special attention to the Singapore Slings, which turned out to be lovely. I could only drink one though -- so sweet and filling!

We had a quick, but delicious $3.50 meal (that was so big we shared) and then went off to the train station. We had sleeping berths for the overnight train to Kuala Lumpur. Our cabin had it's own bathroom! So high class ;) Anyway, we settled in and went to sleep. An hour into the trip they woke us up and we had to go through immigration... but by 11:30pm we were back on the train, not to be woken up again until 6:00am to announce that we were 30 minutes away. Hmm... 30 = 90, but oh well!

Stop #4 Singapore

Singapore was fantastic... we really enjoyed it!

We got in late Thursday night. We tried to 'beat the system' by not flying into the expensive Singapore airport, but instead flying into the cheaper Johor Bahru airport across the causeway in Malaysia. This turned out to be a 'not-so-great' choice! We first had to wait, and wait, and wait for the first bus. This bus dropped us off at another station and told us to run onto another bus, which we did! We were the only ones with luggage (should have been a sign that we were the only idiots). Bus #2 dropped us off at immigration. We walked through the big building, had our passports stamped and got onto Bus #3. Bus #3 took us to another immigration building... can't remember what we did there... then Bus #4 took us to a few blocks away from our hotel (thank god! otherwise we would have had no idea where we were). All that travel took us about 3.5 hours, to travel a small distance. Nice ;)

Anyway, we arrived alive and well and went immediately to an area of hawker-style stalls and had a late (11:15pm) dinner... delicious. Then we returned to our hostel where we slept in a room with no windows and the most freezing (and smelly) air-conditioner! ;)

The next morning we walked around town--saw the music/concert hall and several shiny/fancy malls. You can get lost amongst the endless air conditioned sub-ground malls. The MRT subway connections to malls is quite the tribute to capitalism. Anyway, after a delicious lunch we went off to the zoo.

The Singapore zoo is part zoo, but mostly just an amazing garden. The animals were great and the scenery amazing. Billy says it is the best zoo he has ever visited. We sat and watched the orangutangs for ages. They have the 'cages' set up so the animals appear to roam freely above you via fake vines connecting all the trees. If you look closely at the trunks of the trees, you'll see they have wires set up as deterrents, so the animals stay up in the canopy until they find a tree that takes them down to a proper enclosure. Anyway, those orangutangs were just like us... one was lounging with his back to a tree trunk, with one leg crossed on the other, chewing no a piece of grass.... it was quite funny. Another was hanging upside down on a vine for show. Anyway, it was great. We got to sit down next to 3 of them to take a photo ;)

We also saw 2 white tigers demonstrating the process of reproduction... unfortunately for their offspring, they are related. We learned all white tigers in captivity are decendants of the same tiger captured in India in the 50s. (or 1850s? ... I was tired-memory poor).

After hours of walking around the zoo I was completely exhausted. BUT, no rest for the weary. We went next door to 'Night Safari'... for 3 more hours of zoo, this time in the dark. Luckily we got to ride a tram around for some rest. We also watched a night animal show which was okay. It did make me lose all faith in humanity. In general, people are just idiots and can't be helped. The trainer must have said, 'please, NO FLASH' in 8 different languages, over and over and over again... and yet, it seemed like the Papparrazzi was there taking pictures of brangelina. The highlight of the show for billy was the python. The zoo keepers pretended they had an emergency and asked us all the remain calm while they ran through the stadium asking us to lift up our legs and bags. I was freaked out, not sure if it was a joke or not! They stopped at a big metal door in the ground... asked those sitting above it to move away quickly... they opened it up and pulled out a MASSIVE PYTHON. Scary...! But I was glad to realise it was a skit, and that they hadn't accidentally lost that 3 m snake.

Anyway it was pretty fun to see the nocturnal animals 'out and about'. The highlights... 2 giant ant eaters, male lions roaring, sun bears, fruit bats and some rhinos.

Stop #3 Bali (cont.) - Notes from Billy

Here are just the few pictures we have from Bali (pre-camera and files being lost)... http://picasaweb.google.com/kersti.miller/200903Bali?feat=directlink

After a full day on Monday (volcano, monkeys, dance), we relaxed Tuesday morning at our hotel. We spent some time arranging a few more items for our trip online, and got some excellent indonesian lunch from a hole in the wall restaurant. They start with a plate of rice, and then you choose what you want to go with it, such as curries, fried potatoes, cooked spinach type vegatbles, etc, all served in small portions from a display case. It was spicey and fun to try so many different things.

There is a religious celebration going on over two days while we areat Bali. Balinese are mostly Hindus, with some animism incorporated in, unlike the rest of Indonesia which is mostly Muslim. They have temples for the trinity of Brahma (the creator), Vishnu (theprotector), and Shiva (the destroyer) all over the island. Each house will have its own temple, so there are literally mini-temples on everyblock. On the first day of the ceremony going on right now, each family celebrates at their own private temple. Then the second day is celebrated at the public temples. The big public temples are the onesthe tourists like us go to. In preperation for the ceremonies, each family has put together a tall decroation made using a bamboo tree as the base, and set them up along the street (in front of each house). It is somewhat like decorated flagpoles all along every street.

Driving through some of the small towns, we encountered these beautiful decorations. Since many towns build RIGHT UP to the road, you can imagine 2 lanes (one in each direction), a tiny side walk (maybe) and shacks/buildings built right up to the curbs. There are businesses selling fruits, souveniers, artwork, food, etc... Anyway, the decorative poles placed in front of the houses draped over the street and just made it feel very alive.

That evening we rented a driver again to take us to Ulu Watu, a temple built right on the southern coast of the island. There were a lot more tourists here, and the monkeys are notorious for being aggresive; it was important to hide all sunglasses and jewelry so they wouldn't steal them! The temple was in a spectacular location, and walked toseveral different viewpoints.
Afterwards, we went to Jimbaran to have some bbqed snapper on the beach and to watch the sunset, which was lovely.

Stop #3 Bali - Why use toilet paper when there is a hose?

Day 2 in Bali was quite the adventure. We had our usual Indonesian breakfast at the hotel—mie goreng with tons of fresh fruit, walked to the shops to get water and cash, and then met our driver. He put out his hand and said, ‘G’day’. We thought, oh how nice… ‘G’day to you too!’ we said. We introduced ourselves and then asked him what his name was… and he said, ‘Gaday’!. Oooooh ;)

So we jumped in the car and made our way through holiday traffic towards the mountains. Our first stop was a restaurant perched on the side of a ridge, overlooking a valley at the base of a volcano. It was an amazing view! You could see where the most recent eruption (1992) flowed and there was a huge blue lake just above the valley, at the base of another mountain (not sure if it is a volcano as well).

The only downside of the view was that it had to come from a touristy restaurant, where they charge a ridiculous some for the food. Oh well.

Our next stop was a coffee, tea and spice plantation. Again, perched on a hill overlooking the terraces. Have you heard of that coffee that is made from the beans that are passed through an animal before roasting? I don't know where I had heard of it -- probably in a movie. It's the most expensive coffee in the world and is made right in that little hillside farm. We saw the animals in their cages -- with the special beans ;) Unfortunately, that coffee wasn't part of the free tasting, and we passed it up in the shop ($55 for 100g). In hindsight, perhaps we should have bought it... It would be quite epic to try it, though I think I would have to psych myself up.

On the tasting menu were delicious things -- plain coffee (lovely and rich), gingseng coffee (w/ milk), hot chocolate, ginger tea and lemongrass tea. All were fantastic. I got to drink them all because Billy was experiencing some Bali Belly at the time. Probably courtesy of that tourist restaurant (again, doh!). The shop had heaps of delicious looking spices -- huge bags of whole nutmeg, chilli peppers, etc... Too bad we are on the road!

The next stop was the Sacred Monkey Monestary in Ubud. This was AMAZING! There were huge banyon trees, buddhist stone statues covered in moss and tons, and tons of monkeys. We saw many baby monkeys, which were awesome! I guess it reminded us a bit of Indiana Jones.

Since we lost our camera, I downloaded these from their website: http://www.monkeyforestubud.com/photos.html The only one they don't have is of all the baby monkeys we saw. ;(

After the monkeys we walked around the shops in Ubud -- it was a very busy market with people haggling us left and right. Some of them seemed so desperate. It was really quite depressing actually. I wanted to do more, but the last thing I wanted was to buy the (excuse my language) 'crap' they were selling. We bought some over priced coconut shell bowls and 2 pendants. I think those are our only Bail souveniers! Doh!

After a nice dinner at a restaurant tucked away in one of the little streets, we went straight to see a touristy, but good Balinese dance. I can't remember the style--there are several different types. But anyway, the very graceful young female dancers fascinated us -- they integrate movement with their eyeballs into the dance. As well as flowery hand gestures. The music was Gamelan style (or is that the instrument name?).

Oh! 'Why use toilet paper when there is a hose?'... many of the toilets didn't have TP, instead just hoses. But also common is just a bucket with stagnant water and a scooper to use to splash on yourself. I think I would die.

Stop #2 (cont) - Oil Spill & Moreton Island

After our night of fitful sleep we had a clearer picture of the storm, and learned we were unable to go to Fraser at all. So we went to Eumundi, per the suggestion of the Info Centre lady and toured their fantastic market. It was enormous and we had a nice time walking around and sampling some of the delicacies... ginger beer, kettle corn, fresh bread, crepes, wine.

After an hour or so at the markets we drove south to the Ginger Factory where they process ginger into food products/candies. The place was ideal for elderly tourists, but we enjoyed ourselves! The grounds were covered in lovely plants (which all tourned out to be difference species of ornamental ginger), and as the rain came and went we didn't get too wet. We toured the factory and learned about the harvesting and processing process. The roots they pull up can be as large as a shoe box! Soon after picking the ginger they stick it in brine to harden the outer skin (can be 1-7 days). The whiter and softer the ginger, the fresher it is. Good to know!

They use a crazy laser sorting machine that detects the fiber content of each piece and sends it to the right pot. Then they soak it in syrup for up to 12 days. That syrup is later used for ginger beer. Anyway, we tasted a few products at the end of the tour - which made it worth it.

After the Ginger Factory we sorted ourselves out and decided to head to Moreton Island and stay at the Tangalooma Wild Dolphin Resort. Shortly after this we learned of a massive oil spill that hit moreton island!! What Luck! But as it would happen, the spill is on the Eastern side and we were staying on the Western side. The only major downside (besides the ecological disaster of coruse!) was that most of the island was closed off as a result, and we had to stay within the resort property boundary. So no exotic sand island lakes for us to see.

So on 12 March we took the ferry over... we were lucky to make it! We drove like crazy people from the post office (from where we had shipped some luggage home) to teh ferry and made it just in time.

As we road the ferry out of the Brisbane River, we saw the oil tanker that had caused the spill (and the next day it was to spill more into the river!).

We arrived at the island and everything was lovely... tropical island feel. The first thing we did was to go sand toboganning down a massive sand dune! Quite fun... We went down 3 times, each time re-waxing the piece of particle board we rode on. I (Kersti) wore swim goggles they provided, but billy braved it in his sunnies. I can tell you from the photo the tour guide took, I looked pretty ridiculous! Imagine someone trying to keep sound out of their mouth while going down a sand dune face first, but also trying to keep their eyes open, wearing green rimmed swim goggles.

A few hours later we watched a ranger feed a kookaburra... and then that evening we fed dolphins by hand. Obviously feeding wild animals is never a good idea, so we shouldn't have done that. But it was so hard to resist and the rangers were very informative (and took measures to make sure we didn't pass on disease).

See all our pictures! http://picasaweb.google.com/kersti.miller/200903SunshineCoastMoretonIslandQLD?authkey=Gv1sRgCPrdm-7N9KzIkQE&feat=directlink

Stop #2 - Cyclone Hamish & Brisbane

Unfortunately our plans to visit Fraser Island have been thwarted by Cyclone/Tropical Storm Hamish. He's done a number on the island, but we're trying to still figure out a way to visit another island. We're hoping to go to Moreton Island (closer to Brisbane) tomorrow.


Last night we camped in Cotton Tree at a random campsite right on the beach and were blown around all night by gale force wind and rain! Oh well! Hopefully tonight we'll get some more sleep.

Stop #1 - Central Australia

We spent 3+ days visiting Kings Canyon, Kata Tjuta and Uluru in Central Australia. It was amazing... the weather was mild for the area, the scenery amazing and the hikes stunning. We managed to see 3 beautiful sunrises (some of you won't believe we actually woke up!)... as well as sunsets.

Since we're still on the move (and will be for some time) we can't write too much here... but please see our pictures! http://picasaweb.google.com.au/kersti.miller/200902Uluru?authkey=Gv1sRgCLrriIHXi7HpVQ&feat=directlink

We've left Melbourne!

We departed Melbourne on 6 March, after a few extremely busy weeks! We had tons of fun at Ormond, as there were many parties and functions to welcome the start of the new school year and a new master of the college. But it was terribly hard to say good-bye to all our friends.

For a few more pictures, see our album at: http://picasaweb.google.com.au/kersti.miller/200902Ormond?authkey=Gv1sRgCKiuu6mWv8PeEQ&feat=directlink

Farewell party with friends..
Farewell at Ormond...