Kepa and Alor

Our flight to Alor took a short stop at Kupang on the way. Kupang had a small one-gate-airport thing going on, so everyone waiting for different flights was waiting in the same gate. They decided to kick it old school and scrap the PA system for calling our flight. Instead it was just a whistle, just a simple whistle and everyone going to Alor knew it was time to board. We slightly heard the whistle and saw everyone rushing around so we assumed something was up, so we walked over to the door. Sure enough that was the 'get-on-the-plane-we-are-leaving-now' whistle. I won't ever forget that comical whistle of a boarding call.

We arrived at the teeny tiny Alor airport. I really didn't realize how remote we were until I saw the size of the airport and the next-to-nothingness around the airport. On our way out we stumbled across a Canadian couple going to Kepa Island as well. We were both looking for a ride so we shared a minivan to the boat crossing. The car ride was a about an hour long so we got well acquainted and exchanged numerous travel stories...and of course talked hockey! We all hopped in a boat afterwards and headed over to Kepa to check in.

The resort is called La P'tite Kepa and is located on a small island right off the coast of Alor Island. Alor is a remote island in the eastern Indonesian archipelago. Our bungalow was quite nice and spacious with a gorgeous balcony over-looking the sea. I'm glad we had the nice balcony because we all spent a lot if time reading out there. It seemed reading was the second most popular activity here, the first being diving. I'm not joking, everyone would come to lunch and dinner anouncing that they had flown through another book.

The meals at Kepa were very tasty although they got repetitive over time. They were served family-style, so everyone staying at La P'tite Kepa ate together, which I found very nice to sit and talk with everyone. Lunch and dinner always consisted of fish, rice and a couple veggie dishes (like I said, it gets a bit repetitive!). While breakfast was usually some odd sweet bread of some sort and bananas. Nonetheless the meals were pretty good and tended to be better when there was more guests.

Oh the diving was great! We did 4 dives over the course of our 6 days at Kepa. The first dive was called Harilolong. It was full of beautiful bubblish looking anemones, there were fields of them almost. These bubbly anemones came in many hues of pink and purple adding a touch of zest and flamboyance to the dive. We also saw a couple big lionfish and some very small white crabs. We spotted (and kept clear of) a titan triggerfish (they are known to be very violent and territorial). Some nudibranchs, moray eels, box fishes and nemos were just some more of our sights that dive. Our second dive at Kepa was called Limarahing and was mainly a wall dive with a slope for part. I was very excited that I got to see two mandarin fish, they are so beautiful and it was my first time seeing them! I got to see some well camouflaged scorpionfish and leaf scorpionfish. Seeing the black and white sea snake slither through the ocean was also neat. Motolang was our third dive, I even got to go inside a cave on this one! In the cave I saw 2 sleeping nurse sharks (the first sharks of this trip!). I think I saw 4 moray eels on this dive too. Along with the amazing orang utan crab (the first picture below), (it really looks like an oran utan!) and the beautiful clown triggerfish. On our final dive we went to Wolang. My favourite part was the pygmy seahorse (I have always wanted to see a seahorse-even it's only the eighth of the size of my fingernail!). The dive guide spotted it out but it must have been near impossible because it was clinging onto a fan coral of the exact same colour as itself and I have already told you of the size. We saw another clown triggerfish and another boxfish. The only downside to the dives here was the current, at all the dive sites we went to there was at least a little bit of current or swell. On one of the dives there was so much current the dive guide let me use his tank-tapper-poker-stick, I was pretty stoked about the poker stick! I felt like I had so much added authority and like I was instantly a better diver! I want to buy one but they are $20...and I ain't paying $20 for a tent peg and a piece of string! But to finish it off on a good note we got to eat beng-beng chocolate and drink coffee after the dives.

I met a nice French girl by the name of Lila who lives at Kepa with her parents (the owners). She is 9 years old now and can speak, French and Indonesian fluently and is also pretty good at English. I played a few card games with her and one day we went and made a pile of yummy cookies. I got a good chance to practice bits of French and Indonesian with Lila and the kitchen staff.

After six days we bid our farewells to Christina and Tye- the Canadians and the remaining Kepa guests. I had a great time at Kepa and it was definitely worth the trip out. Next we are heading to Labuan Bajo to do some more diving and snorkelling.

Kuta and Ubud

My stay in Kuta was a hectic mess for the most part and Ubud wasn't a whole lot better. I'm not saying it was bad, it was just very chaotic. When we arrived in Kuta at around noon we hunted out a hotel without too much difficulty.
After we got kinda settled we headed over to Water Bom. Water Bom is a nice water park in Kuta- about a 15 minute walk from our hotel off of Legian Street. It is one of the best in Southeast Asia anyways. There were plenty of water slides there, my favourite being the drop-floor-slide and the runner up being the very-steep-almost-straight-down-slide. The drop-floor-slide had a capsule that you stand in, 3-2-1 and there goes the floor from underneath you. You get sent down a very steep chute and then whirled around in an upside-down-loop-thingy. You have to be a certain weight to go on this slide or else you will get stuck in the loop. I was just over the required weight so both times I did the slide I could feel myself slow down and nearly get stuck. The very-steep-almost-straight-down-slide was also fun but not nearly as fun as the one I just described. It was pretty much just a slide that went straight down(not literally).
After a good few hours at Water Bom we left and wandered around Kuta looking for a cheap bathing suit, because my old one was thrashed. Easier said than done, it ended up using most of our time in Kuta! At the end of all our shopping in Kuta I came out with 2 bathing suits and a really nice Surfer Girl backpack. Surfer Girl is a cool girls surf shop with nice apparel and accessories. I don't surf at all but some of the stuff is purdy and not too surf related. The backpack cost me $40 (haha I'm going to run out of money!) but I'm glad I bought it.

For dinner we looked and looked for an old restaurant we had been at 3 years ago in Kuta and we finally found it! Wow it sure paid off, we got AMAZING thin crust pizza. I think it was one of the best meals of this trip so far!
We only stayed in Kuta for one night but that was definitely good enough for me. Boy, it was loud that night. We stayed on a side-road off of Legian Street but that wasn't really far enough away for a quiet night. Legian Street has good shopping but also has plenty of noisy night clubs that keep the music pounding all night. Wouldn't recommend staying there if you have to get up early the next morning!
We took the 1:30pm Perama shuttle up to Ubud the next day to meet some friends and do some shopping. On our day of arrival we checked in to the hotel, wandered around, checked out the market and ate at the amazing Dewa Warung. First of all we dropped our packs and checked into the same hotel we stayed at when we were in Ubud 3 years ago. Then we went and grabbed a quick bite from our favourite restaurant in Ubud, Dewa Warung. Mmmmmmmm, it was so tasty! Potato cakes were ordered all round and not a crumb was left from any of us. The potato cake consisted of grated potato fried up and served with tomato and cucumber on top. It is really nice to be able to go back to some places a few years later and see that they haven't changed for the worse.
I remember the market being big but it is HUGE now! It seems to have sprawled out even further than before. It is jammed full of the usual souvenir vendors selling pretty much the same thing at every stall. I bought a sarong, a Bintang singlet, an oil burner and a ceramic happy face.

We mailed a parcel, met Scott and Donna (my Dad's friend from school and his wife) at Dewa Warung and did a bit more shopping before heading to the airport and flying to Alor via Kupang.

Lembongan Island

Lembongan...Bali's very own mini-me paradise. Lembongan island is situated off southeastern Bali (a 45 minute boat ride from Sanur). If Bali was shrunk (size and population) you would come up with a little island paradise called Lembongan. Lembongan has a great laid back vibe and has a little something for everyone. There is diving, snorkelling, surfing, parasailing, jet skiing, stand up paddle boarding, kayaking, swimming, sunbathing and just about anything else you could want to do on an island.

We took the morning Perama boat from Sanur to Lembongan and got there in good time, to find a hotel and explore the island. After checking at a few places we found that Ketut Losmen Bungalows was suitable. We got a fan room right by the beach with a nice big balcony and some sea breeze. An awesome bonus was the infinity swimming pool.

After checking in and going for a swim it was time for a little exploration! We walked down the road and found a store to rent a motorbike from (there was no shortage of stores renting them). All three of us squeezed on and drove off around the island. We checked out Mushroom Bay and Dream Beach but Devils Tear was amazing. It sure did live up to its name; huge waves crashing into the rocks and shooting up through holes. Look out and you see endless rock-bluff shoreline with unforgiving seas thrashing about. To me that is what I think of if someone was to tell me to imagine Bali's coastline. It's just so spectacular and beautiful.

On our second day we went for a snorkel tour. I will try to be positive by saying it was alright. Right off the bat something happened to the motor and he spent 10 minutes trying to fix it with no luck, so we just used the spare. Another 20 minutes to half an hour was used to trying to spot manta rays, unfortunately with no luck also. We went in for a snorkel at the manta-less manta spot, it wasn't too bad but it would have been a whole lot better if we saw a manta. The corals were very far down so there really wasn't much to see. To put the icing on the cake my camera got ruined by water damage(I have...or had I should say, an underwater camera)! I got out of the water and tried to turn my camera on and the screen remained black. A couple minutes later I tried again and the screen started going fancy colours and I saw some water on the inside of the screen. Finally I opened up where the battery and SD card go and it was all wet. Before I went in the water with it I checked the seals and made sure everything was secure, so I'm blaming it on the camera and not myself. Anyways I phoned Panasonic and asked about the warranty, they told me it had expired a week ago. A week! Yes you heard that right only 7 days! So now I have to wait till I get back to Canada for it to get repaired or replaced. And now I have to go the rest if the trip without my camera. Crystal Bay was our next stop. The coral was not bad, a lot better than the first spot. The colour wasn't amazingly vibrant but there was a good variety of coral and fish. We hopped in once more to see some trevally.

We met a very nice French family in the hotel pool that afternoon with two kids aged 3 and 6. The latter was a young girl by the name of Océane. While the former was a little boy by the name of Célian. We had a great time in the pool with them. One evening we drew pictures and another all of us went out for dinner at D&B Warung. I practiced a few of my basic French skills with them and they practiced a little English with me.

The following day we toured the island by motorbike again and even crossed the little suspension bridge over to Cennigan Island. We drove around on some little roads and got a great view of Lembongan before heading for some lunch at a nice little restaurant on Cennigan. I had a great sleep on the balcony that night anticipating our dive the next day. Yay my first dive in three years! I'm definitely ready to make some more bubbles this trip!

At 9am we started a refresher course in the pool. The first thing we went over was getting our gear set up, tank, reg, bcd and all that fun stuff. Then we did the buddy check- Breakfast With Rice And Fish, an acronym for the buddy check. Breakfast=BCD, With=weight belt, Rice=regulator, And=air, Fish=final check. In the pool we did mask clearing, reg recovery, buddy breathing and some buoyancy exercises. It went by smoothly and quickly with no problems. At around 2pm we all went for a dive at Crystal Bay. Our dive was 75 minutes long (for me anyways) and we went as deep as 18 meters. It was nice to be able to go deeper, last trip they restricted me to a max depth of 12 meters. I think the coral seemed a fair bit better when we were diving opposed to snorkelling at the same site. I saw a couple nudibranchs, a turtle, a boxfish, a garden eel, a goatfish, a filefish and plenty of other nice corals and fish. The topography of the dive site was a sloping beach.

The following day we hopped on the Perama boat back to Bali. My stay on Lembongan was very pleasant, it's nice to have a little getaway from the big hubbub of Bali.

Singapore

Wow, Singapore is the exact opposite of Myanmar. I'm not going to say that one opposite was better than the other because they are both great for there own reasons. Myanmar is a very dirty, undeveloped and traditional country. While Singapore is a very clean, developed and modern country. I will probably be referring to Singapore as a country and a city, so you are aware Singapore is a city-country (that's what I call it anyways). It's is exactly like what it sounds like-a city that is also a country.
We took the MRT into the city(oooh I just can't get enough of MRT and LRTS and all that cool transit stuff, it's so fun!) We stayed at Victoria Hotel, it is a pretty good room and the location couldn't be better, right near Bugis Street!

I have defiantly fallen in love with Bugis Street, the shopping is great and cheap. It has the market prices and vibe with the mall air-con and size. Bugis is jammed full of tiny shops with 'trendy' (wow, I didn't know I'd ever use that word!) clothes for cheap. Most shirts, dresses, shorts and shoes are about $10-20. I went to Bugis for a good couple hours each day we were in Singapore.

Although Bugis was awesome, the definite highlight of my time in Singapore was dinner on the Singapore Flyer. Now that was spectacular. The Singapore Flyer is the worlds largest Ferris wheel, a sight to behold, even just looking at it. It is a breathtaking 165m high and takes half an hour to do one revolution. Our first out of four dinner courses was a salad. Oooh it was yummy, it was even topped with salmon and shrimp. A tasty mushroom soup was next on the list. Followed by the entrée, delicious stuffed chicken with potato and veggies. To tie things up was a decadent chocolate mousse brownie with strawberry drizzle. I also got a $10 mocktail. The food on its own was great but the view just made it that much better. Our dinner was from 7:30-8:30pm so it was just getting dark and the buildings of Singapore were just getting lit up. It was absolutely amazing seeing all those lights.

Another highlight was our Singapore Slings. If you don't know what a Singapore Sling is, it's a fruity tropical cocktail invented in Singapore in 1915. It was invented at Raffles Hotel so we decided to walk there to get one since in was in our neighbourhood. We walked out just as fast as we walked in when they told us it was a whopping $28! I think that's a bit much for a cocktail, even at a fancy hotel where it was invented. We walked across the street to Gravity Bar(inside the Carlton) and got one for only $10. It's amazing how they can charge three times as much just for being the birthplace of the Singapore Sling. Anyhow it was very tasty(I got mine without the gin) and It's cool to be able to say "I've had a Singapore Sling in Singapore!"

Our stay in Singapore was only three days long but the short stop here was well worth it. We are going to hit the beach in Bali next.

Inle Lake and Yangon

The first thing I thought when we landed in Heho was 'wow this is nice'. The temperature was quite cool compared to scorching sun of Bagan and Yangon (especially the latter). From Heho we got picked up and driven to Remember Inn in Nyaung Shwe. When we arrived in Nyaung Shwe we wandered around the market because it was too late to go out to the lake. There was all sorts of stuff at the market, most aimed at local buyers but some at tourists.

When we were done with the market we wandered out to the river, on the way we stopped at a cheap little ice cream shop. The river was a buzz of action, boats going here and there and people constantly asking if we wanted a boat tour.

We went on a boat tour the next day at 8am. Unfortunately it was a full moon and there was no floating market. But we did get to see plenty of the Inle Lake leg rowers. It was really neat, they would do stuff with the fishing nets with their hands, while using one leg wrapped around an oar to row in a snake-like motion. We also got to see ladies weaving and making thread from lotus fibre.

That evening we took the VIP bus back to Yangon. Oh was it ever great! The seats were like armchairs you could find in your living room-they reclined nicely and even had foot rests. To top it off they served us a candy, butter cake and a Pepsi. The only downside is that we got kicked off the bus at 2:00am for a half hour stop.
It was sooo hot when we got back to Yangon. By noon it is usually around 40 degrees, but it feels way hotter because of the humidity. When it's 40 degrees you really can't do a whole lot, go for short walks and then go back into the air-con room. Thank god we have an air-con room, a fan defiantly wouldn't suffice in these temperatures.

Next stop...Singapore!

Yangon and Bagan

Landing in Yangon was a big relief, we had finally arrived! We couldn't get a visa on arrival, so we had to get one ahead of time and that proved to be a bigger hassle than we made it out to be. We had planned on getting our visa in KL right after we got back from Cambodia...that was easier said than done. It just so happened that the Myanmar embassy was closed for a week, because it was a Burmese New Years festival (New Years in April I will never quite understand!). So no visa then. That's why we decided to go up to the Perhentian Islands for a few days. Finally the embassy was up and running again and we were able to apply for our visas. The embassy was a gong show, there was 5 minutes left in the application drop off and everyone was just shoving there passports through the window (us included). Picking them up a day later was also a close call with plenty more people shoving their pick-up forms through the window (including us). We finally got our visa and all was well, ready for a flight to Yangon.

We got picked up at the airport by a very old bus that took us and a couple more travellers to Motherland 2 Inn. We went for a bit of a walk around Yangon and in the evening we went to see the famous Shwedagon Pagoda. It was absolutely enormous and everywhere you looked there was gold, LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of gold. Archeologists believe the temple was built between the 6th and 12th centuries, although the legend is a fair bit more optimistic (apparently about 2500 years old). The pagoda faced a lot of earthquakes in the 18th century and was rebuilt in 1769. I think Shwedagon has constant upkeep because to me it only looks to be a few years old. It was very busy with locals and monks milling around and praying. There were tons of Buddhas everywhere! Some of the Buddhas were huge, one of them I could have comfortably had a nap in his hand (if I had climbing gear to get up there!)

We were on the bus to Bagan the next night, ready to see the stupas. Oh my, was the bus ever bad! To start things off we had something very loud and obnoxious on the speaker, I think it was someone chanting in Burmese. To keep the sound going we had some really loud Burmese music videos being played all night. The seats were quite hard and impossible to get comfy in, let alone sleep. We got into Bagan at about 3:30am so we walked around until we found New Park Hotel. Our search for the hotel was serenaded by about half a dozen barking dogs.
Once we checked in to the hotel we slept for a little bit and then walked out to the market for a shop. The market was composed of both stuff for the locals and souvenirs. I bought a nice hand bag for myself and wandered around to see plenty of vendors selling lacquerware, carvings, t-shirts and traditional longyis.
Our second day in Bagan we spent out at the stupas/temples. My oh my, neither pictures nor words can come close to describing the beauty. The temples of Bagan are unlike ANYTHING I have seen before. Stupas speckle 42 square kilometres of landscape, they are as far as you can see. My favourite stupas were the ones you could climb up and get a view. The first one we visited at about quarter to six in the morning was so mystical. There were stupas as far as you could see in every direction, and a thin layer of mist hovering around the temples for added beauty. I just sat and stared wide-eyed, it was incredible. I could describe it all day and you still wouldn't know what it is like. Even pictures don't near do it justice. The only way to wrap your head around the beauty is to be there and witness it. I'm sure I could have sat there for hours in silence soaking it in-and I LOVE to talk!

For our final day in Bagan we hired a taxi to take us out to Mt.Popa. On our way out to Mt. Popa we stopped at a family palm sugar factory. They were also making peanut oil there with the help of a cow. The cow was attached to a shaft and on the other end was a bowl stuck into the ground with peanuts in it. With a little motivation the cow would go around in circles causing the peanuts to get ground up. Of course they also made palm sugar stuff there too. One side of the kitchen was where they made yummy but excessively sweet palm sugar candies. On the other side they made the booze, palm sugar rum I think. I tried a little and it was pretty good.

They gave us a little bit of traditional Burmese food and Chinese tea. The plater consisted of tea leaves, roasted garlic, sesame seeds, fried beans, and fried batter of some sort. It was very good! After our snack was finished we went and bought a few packages of palm sugar candies from them. A little goes a long way with those candies so we shipped them back home to share and eat gradually.

There was a viewpoint we stopped at and took photos of Mt. Popa. There were some girls selling petrified wood and volcanic rocks at the viewpoint, I bought I couple of volcanic rocks, you could shake them and hear stuff rattling around inside.

Mt. Popa wasn't a hike it was just a bunch of stairs, but that was fine because the view was great. It overlooked the countryside below. The most amazing part was that there was a temple on top of the mountain, it must have been very difficult to build. On our way out of Mt. Popa village we stumbled across a nat(spirit) festival. As soon as we came to the door way everyone started taking our picture, and looking at us, I guess they were very surprised to see white people peeping in the door of a traditional festival. They were all very welcoming friendly but we had to go soon after we arrived. It was a very cool experience.

We are flying to Inle Lake next and staying there for a few days before going back to Yangon.

Perhentian Islands

My visit to the Perhentian Islands was quite nice for the most part. From Kuala Lumpur we took the 10 hour sleeper train to Tanah Merah. We then got a 1 hour taxi to Kuala Besut, where the boats leave from. Finally we went on a half hour boat to get us to Perhentian Kecil Island. We had been to the Perhentian Islands a few years ago so it was nice to see what had changed and what had stayed the same. I was very happy to see there was not much change, only one new resort on the Coral Bay side.

White sand, palm trees and azure blue sea is about the best way to describe the Perhentian Islands. Yup, that description is rather tasteless and you have all probably heard it plenty of times before to describe a tropical island. But that's it, that is what the Perhentian Islands are like.

Our first night we stayed at Maya Chalets. It was right on the beach, so it was quite breezy and cool. I thought the bungalow would be a great place to hang our hats for a few days, but by morning my opinion had changed otherwise. I woke up and I couldn't see very well but it looked as if I had a few dots on my arms. I got out of bed (I had been sleeping on a thermarest on the floor with a bug net) only to see that my arms were COVERED in red dots! I looked in the mirror and saw that my face was also covered in dots, along with my back! We went and asked the guys at the hotel and they didn't know what it was. We continued down the beach and asked our internet guy friend. He was pretty sure they were bed bug bites. We asked a few more people and they all were pretty sure it was bed bugs, so we looked online and came to the conclusion that it was bed bugs. I was VERY lucky that the bites never got itchy or I would be covered in scars and the bites would have taken way longer to heal. They took about a week to go away.

 

We moved over to Ewan's bungalows for a couple of nights, to steer clear of the bed bugs. Since Ewan's is up away from the beach there isn't much breeze, but I would rather be a bit warm than have bed bugs, any day. The food at Ewan's Cafe was just as amazing as I remember. Last time we came Ewan's Cafe was a little place that wasn't very busy. Word has gotten out and it has turned into a thriving restaurant, that is jam packed at lunch and dinner everyday.

During the day we would go down to the beach and go swimming. The snorkelling out in front kind of sucked there because most of the coral is dead. There was the odd patch of live coral with some fish calling it home, so I took my little underwater camera out. It was my first time taking photos of fish with it and it proved to be very difficult. One if the hard parts was diving down to get close enough to the fish without scaring it away. It was also very hard to keep the camera still while holding my breath. The last hard part was equalizing while I went down at holding the camera. I normally don't have to equalize when I'm diving down just snorkelling, but since I had a cold it would hurt my ears if I didn't. My cold is gone now so I will be able to go diving if we go anywhere with good diving.

Despite being eaten alive by bed bugs, my stay in the Perhentian Islands was quite nice. We are heading to Myanmar next, to see Bagan and Inle Lake!