Jumping Monkey or Jumping Mykie...

This video is sideways, sorry. Mykie and I were in Indonesia on a snorkeling tour and this lighthouse was one of our stops. It is in the middle of the water with a beautiful coral reef around it and a cave for advanced snorkelers to dive through. This lighthouse is 10+ meters high and Mykie decides that he wants to jump off it. I am sitting safely in the boat filming and doing the commentary. Enjoy!

From Asia back to OZ

Well, it appears that just around the corner our trip is coming to an end. Unfortunately, we have to go back to OZ Oct 22. I am not looking forward to getting back in the grind of things but we need to make some more money for the Philippines. I think that the both of us enjoyed Kula Lumpur. It is an easy city to get lost in for an easy week. I think that out of all the crazy south east asian cities, this one is the most tame.

Through out this journey, there were things that i was not so comfortable with. Something that would make me unhappy if I had to deal with them back home. But this is asian life out here, and if you really want to live it the real way, you have to do it this way....

First, cold showers are not a normal experience for me. At first it was very hard to get used to but when the day is so hot and sticky, that cold shower feels amazing. You can get rooms with hot and cold showers but it is more expensive and I am sure that we would spend our money on other better things.

If you go to a 'hostel' they are usually not so pretty to look at. THe place we have in Kula lumpur looks like a jail cell with no window to the outside world. If you don't count the hallway. The bed is an iron bed with a small side table and a fan. That is the luxurious life of a budget traveller. There is an upside to this....it costs $5 per person per day. Can't beat that. You probably don't want to spend too much time there anyway unless you buy the new christopher paolini book about dragons. It is all the rage in our room with Mykie so engrossed that he doesn't even know that i am talking sometimes. I tried to get into it but there are too many weird references to bangdlers and dragons and semi people etc. By he first chapter i was so lost i did not know who was what.

That reminds me of a funny experience we had a this burger joint called carl juniors. I think it is like a licks back home. They have a great burger menu. They had this yummy guacamole burger and under it there was a double guacamole burger. I was so excited i thought twice the amount of guacamole, i was in heaven. i love that stuff. To my horror, the burger was the size of mykie's head and double guacamole does not mean you get twice the amount of guacamole. It means you get two patties. I was like what am i going to do with two patties the size of Mykie's head. I wanted guacamole....in the end the burger was so tasty and to those wondering, no i couldn't fully finish it. I was so disappointed :( But this was also the day we bought our new snorkels and we wore them in the restaurant while taking tons of photos. I get started at enough, why not add to the fire.

Another asian point: For those who do not like bugs, well this is not your place to visit. As i tried to explain to my grandpa, the roaches here re the size of mice and some fly. yes, they fly. and they are fast. We see them everywhere and at first i was really grossed out by them, but now i just step over them and keep going. If they were in my house back home, I would probably have a heart attack but i will let them stay here.

We found this local restaurant, where i am probably the only white person that goes in there. This fact I am sure of because the moment we go in all the waiters come running to us to serve us. Sometimes it seems that if i closed my eyes for one second they would fight for a place in front of me waiting for me to look again. But, there is this one waitree/waiter that works there that i really like. It is a lady boy ( a man who lives as a lady). She is so sweet I just want to take her out for coffee and ask thousands of questions. There are lady boys downstairs at the local bar, and they are great. So pleasant. Aside from the funny enthusiastic staff there are roaches there too that always seem to crawl on the wall beside Mykie as we are waiting for our food. They are usually small, but yesterday a big one came to say Hello.... Goodbye, and I flinged it with the menu, over Mykie's head. So nasty! Not my Favourite!

Melaka to Kuala Lumpur Malaysia

From singapore we took a bus to the city of Melaka which is on the way to Kula Lumpur in Malaysia. BTW i don't remember if i mentioned this but the buses here in asia are great because they all have recliner seats and are never full. it is really nice and comfortable. Melaka was supposed to be a two day stop to see its famous historic dutch remains. We ended up staying one week instead! We loved it. Not so much the city. It was small and there was not very much to do. We saw the historic dutch remains which remained to be a disappointment probably for most people that visit there. It consisted of crumbled remains of some building that was built in 1511. Mind you , that is impressive in itself that it is still standing. But aside form that, it was had nothing else to offer. There was a funny man sitting at the top of the stairs asking for change. Interesting enough he did not ask Mykie for anything as he walked by but insisted on telling me that he had an accident and wanted change. The accident apparently was hidden underneath a tensor bandage around his ankle. Please, i have seen a lot more 'accidents' in my life. I once fell from the monkey bars in the playground. Now that hurt a lot! LOL (laugh out loud)

Mykie and I saw five movie at the beautiful new theatre and enjoy the theatre to ourselves almost each time. We spent some hot days swimming at the local public pool. The pool was olympic sized, that was nice. On our last day Mykie got in trouble by some rambling man about not wearing speedo type swim shorts. Apparently, everyone wears them. Maybe they are all the rage down here. I don't know what the rage would be about though.

The lure of this place was the unique and totally welcoming hostel that we stumbled upon. The local bus had dropped us off a little to far from our original bus stop, so now we had to walk. Fortunately, we walked right by emily's guest house. It was a tropical garden oasis that was trapped behind the smouldering asphalt and humming from excessively loud passing traffic. Once we walked in we knew that we would be staying here longer than our planned two days. They had created this place from the ground up with their bare hands. Two brothers owned and ran it. They had a pet rabbit named mister playboy, with whom i fell in love with instantly. The had two turtles and lots of fish!!!!!!! It was like a garden oasis, with a hammock under a tree. tables and chairs made of wood stumps and very interesting travellers.

Note: i bought carrots and bananas for mister playboy. He loved it!!!!!!!!!!!! This rabbit just decided a year or so ago to take shelter at the hostel and now he is one of the locals.

We happen to meet a couple from Holland who i thought had the worst luck in the world but after long consideration, i realized they were just pretty stupid. First, they got their Ipod stolen from a safe. They rented out a safe at the hotel next to their own. Once they put the ipod into the safe, the guy heard someone mention ipod in malay but they just walked out and left it there anyway. When they returned after a couple of days everything but the ipod was gone. Surprisingly, they did not check their stuff until they got to another island and realized their ipod was gone. So dumb! It gets better.... They were sitting on a train, and there was a suspicious guy lurking around the doors. Even though he was suspicious, they did nothing. All of a sudden he reaches over them and picks up their 40 lbs pack and runs out of the train. They sat their all confused about what was going on. By the time they realized, he was gone somewhere in the shadows of the tracks(it was a t night) and there with him was his pack. So dumb, they just sat there screaming. AS the train started moving, the man emerged holding the pack in his arms as they watched him standing there. They never took the normal precautions they usually did like tying the bag to the rack.They always did that, not this time though.

At the hostel, the girl left her wallet under the couch and did not even know it was there. so dumb.... i thought it was a string of bad luck but when you hear the full story, you know they are not the sharpest pencils in the drawer.

They also had some bad experiences with bed bugs here in malaysia...but i guess you should learn from your mistakes and choose better. well, they got it after the 3rd time, LOL

Indonesia to Singapore to Malaysia

I believe that another update is due. This one will not be as long as the other one, LOL. I hope.

Mykie and I were in the north of Sulawesi at an island called Bunaken (Indonesia), pronounced Boo na can. I was made fun of a lot since i never pronounced it right. This island had a scuba diving resort on it and Mykie and I decided to become certified scuba divers. Well this turned out to be an adventure in itself. The resort is run by two british expatriates who love diving so much that they decided to open a diving school (PADI). The resort was amazing. beautiful bamboo huts on stilts and the clear, hot water right at your door. It was really how I pictured paradise to look like in asia. The thing that threw me off the most was that the water temperature was about 27 degrees. I have never experienced this before. It was really warm!!!!!! It was so nice.

Bunaken is world known for its diving, because they have some amazing drop off cliffs and all the marine life you can think of, including sharks , dolphins and giant turtles.

Becoming a certified scuba divers is no joke it is serious. To fast forward a little, Mykie got certified and completed the entire training but as for me.....it was a premature decision to dive simply because of my lack of deep water exposure. Mykie did so well! I am very proud of him. He is now a certified open water scuba diver.

Well, my story isn't so sad though. I did not complete the water part of the diving but completed all the test and theoretical work. Half way done. I got to the resort with only being in deep water once in 2005 in the mediterranean and never snorkelled in my life. My instructor was so confused when i told him about my lack of exposure to water, but i wanted to try. The first day at the resort, Mykie and I snorkelled for the first time ever. We walked from the shore in the water. At first i was really nervous because the water was so murky and so much sea grass was everywhere. It was creeping me out a lot. It took me a few minutes to adjust to the water looking so undesirable.......BUT....... I just sucked in the fear and started to float. The moment i started to relax the water became crystal clear and we became surrounded by marine life you see in aquariums. There were so many cool fish and star fish everywhere. I felt like we were floating in a real aquarium.

My first ever experience was wonderful. 1.5 hours of snorkelling was great. BTW we had our instructor leading us. We don't know the area it was necessary. I was so excited about diving. the water was not as scary as i thought. The drills underwater with all the heavy bulky equipment is what freaked me out. my breathing devise was too small for my mouth and i felt like i was struggling to keep it in. even mykie thought it was uncomfortable. so from that day i decided that I was not ready for scuba diving. The equipment was not comfortable at all!

I went on the boat a total of 3 times after that and snorkelled as everyone was scuba diving. I started to fear the deep water less and less. i really enjoyed being on top of the water and seeing life below me. It is a nice feeling knowing you can just float and breath and everything will be ok. I saw so many cool things including a sting ray which no one else saw but me. sometimes it is easier to see things from up top you get a better view than when you are down there. In total we saw I huge turtle come up for air and dolphins (black). Never got to see the sharks because they were to close to the ground.

Before we go back to australia, i will finish my certification. I can just continue from where I finished off at.

I am addicted to what is underneath. There is so much that i can not even explain what happens below, but i believe that everyone should try it at least once in their life!

After the scuba diving and snorkelling, we were off to our favourite city thus far...singapore!!!!!!!!!! Yeah, singpaore. It was such a refreshing place to be after seeing and being in a country with so many slums everywhere, being hassled every second, and especially for me... be treated like a walking dollar!

Singapore is a brand new country. it is really small and you can drive around the whole place in one day, taking breaks. It is not a cheap place to visit though. There is world class shopping and dinning there and entertainment galour. we could even drink the tap water. You cannot dothat in indonesia, you will die from it. but it is so expensive! It is like new york without the lights. The people are really helpful. .literally every time we took out our map, someone was there to help us in a mtter of seconds. We felt and acted like we were in Toronto. It felt like home!

I am going to end this update by saying more about singapore in my next update.....

we are in melaka malaysia right now, and it is different than indonesia in many many ways... and for that we are glad....

Tana Toraja- Read with Caution

Warning, this email is not for the faint hearted!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This will be probably my longest email because it really deserves the length...... It is worth the read

Parental advisory warning!

So we are in Sulawesi and it has been one of the craziest and I mean craziest experiences of my life!!!!! So here is the story....

We fly into Makassar where we have to take an 8 hour bus trip to get to the area of Tana Toraja. No problem right, well the adventure started the moment we stepped off the plane. We get out of the airport and there are dozens of men trying to get us to buy packages to take us where we supposedly want to go. It is a hagglers dream.. one white girl who apparently looks alone. Every single person in Indonesia thinks that mykie is one of them! I am a tough cookie and I put my foot down and say no thanks I want to find it on my own. But A for effort because these guys try hard to sell yo the moon. The taxi to the bus station was a prepaid ticket, thank god. We hop in and the driver knows where we are going but doesn't understand a word of English. All i see around us in the dark since it is 9pm are slums, everywhere. i am thinking only crazy things at this point.

we arrive to the bus station in one piece, no worries. as soon as we get out of the taxi, 8 men jump out to help us with our bags. once they touch your bag they want money. I had to almost flight this one dude to leg go of my stuff. They knew I meant business and backed off. I am a hot commodity hear.

We sat in the bus station with every single person looking at me as if i was the only white person in the whole wide world. I am thinking two things, either they don't normally see too many of my skin colour or I am the richest woman to have a personal guide with me, mykie, LOL hahahahahahahh.

The bus had these sleeper seats which would be really comfortable if you were driving on the 401 but not through the jungle up a mountain. I have never experienced such a ride. I look out the window and all I see is jungle shinning through the lights from the bus. Green is everywhere. we are on a one way road with two way traffic. There seems to be a turn on the road every second, I am flying out of my seat. The sleepers are not really made for my height anyway. On the bright side it was so beautiful even in the dark. It felt like a world so far from our own. I have never been surrounded by so much green and in the darkness surrounded by the glow of the bus lights, it felt like a dream. An off road adventure!

they dropped us off at our hotel, which was recommended and we booked our tours! NOw this is where the warnings come in. I have played this story in my head a thousand times as to how I will tell it, but any way I do it it will not do it justice. Just note as you read on that it will be graphic and not for weak hearts. But the people here believe in certain things and never waste anything!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The lure of this place is their burial ceremonies which include buffalo sacrifices.... read on if you dare....

When a person dies, the family keeps them in their home until they can afford to hold a burial ceremony which takes 4 days to complete. The more money and status you have the easier and quicker it will be. most tourists that come here see the first two parts out of four, but we were lucky enough to see the last two out of four.

Step 3..... so we get picked up at 730 in the morning and take trip to the community/ village where a 90 year old man is being honored for his life. we get dropped off on the road and walk up with our guide a treacherous hike up muddy slopes, no shoes are worn because i makes it harder to climb. I have never gotten so dirty before. It was kinda nice. we arrive at the top of the mountain to be greeted by inquiring eyes. a white woman with two Indonesia guides( one is Mykie). Every one there is a local from a small village in the mountains. Most people are afraid of me but it is not uncommon to have tourists be present here at these ceremonies, this is why we come. We giving the grieving family our gift( a carton of cigarettes). They are really pleasant to us and now we sit down in a special place and wait for the ceremony to start. I knew what I was getting myself into but everything is different in reality.

Next thing you know, 6 buffalo are paraded around us. When i send the pictures once we return to Melbourne i will post this again so you can really understand what this looks like. Everyone is sitting in these little room things and the dead person is in the center in a special house like structure and the bulls are in the center as well. And then the ceremony starts!......

There is a huge bamboo shaft placed in the centre where the buffalo gets his hind leg tided to the post. There are special skilled men who have machetes that stand infront of the buffalo and with one swift wave of the knife to the buffalos throat......all you see is a struggling buffalo that has had his throat slashed and blood is pouring so hard from its throat. his head is pointed up because the throat is slashed so hard the only way it can keep its head up is by having it back. The buffalo is scared and dying! Writing this part makes my stomach turn. It is a gross event but there is something about it that was not only haunting but spiritual in a way. If that makes any sense. THere were 6 buffalo in total and at one point there was so much blood everywhere that i thought i was going to be sick. I kinda stayed in the back and not really watched but Mykie got it all on tape.

Imagine experiencing something like this 6 times. It was beyond anything that i can verbally express,anything that video can explain any nothing that photos can tell. This is a once in a life time experience and for a animal lover such as myself it was more than a lifetime can and should see.

I thought i could go into more detail but the memory of the experience is too much to explain. It does have a happy ending though. After all the buffalos are dead, they skin them right there. I forgot to mention one thing, the ground is 100% mud and urine from the animals ( and poo). So they skin them, all of them. Right infront of everyone right where they died. The skin is then dried and sent to Java to make things of leather product. After the skinning is finished they cut up the entire buffalo into little pieces, the head separate. Then each family who brought the buffalo distributes all the pieces of the entire buffalo (every piece) to people pf their community that have joined them that day. Every piece of the animal gets eaten. Every piece!!!!!!! THis is where asian food gets interesting!

This part was really messy and sloppy, remember the blood mixed with mud etc.... well they cut it there, on it. There is a special smell in the air. I think you can imagine what it was like but for those who cannot....dead meat and poo. Exactly like that.

A total of 10 tourists stayed to watch the sayings/sacrifices but they all left when done except for us. We were the only tourists that have every stayed to experience everything. We were there from the offering the gift to the family to after lunch which was around 12. 8-12 is a long day of sitting and looking at raw meat. And to add there were wild dogs everywhere as well.

I know i mentioned lunch, yes there is a lunch and guess what it was? Buffalo.... so lovely!!!!! NOT! it was a real honour for us to stay that long and have lunch with the locals that is why we did. They loved ME! They could not get enough of me. Especially the kids, and i had candy. They loved it. I would have been ok if the meat was muscle or something but it was lung and tripe. There was rice and meat that smelled like its environment. To say this nicely, i ate half a small bowl of rice and pretended to eat a small piece of meat which i threw to the dogs. It was so nasty that Mykie was gaging. If you saw the environment and smelled it, that was enough to turn you off. They had palm wine which we drank happily. Mykie was so funny because he would not talk to me while eating because he was so grossed out! lol

The rest is for another email, this story and the images that we captured will last us a life time. It was one of the best experiences i have ever had. Being in such a small village I really understood what it felt like to be different. And, really different. But the difference from oppression is that i was different but welcomed!!!!!!!!! I want to emphasize that.

This might seem nasty and cruel to most from our culture but normal and real to those here. And though I scrubbed so hard in the shower after 8 hours at the ceremony, I appreciated my life more and respected theirs even more. I am so blessed to have what i have and be able to see and do what I can. My life is so big and I am so happy because of it.

When we get back, i will show pics and video if you dare and explain more because the story is not finished there is a lot more to tell. but, this keyboard sucks and i have already worte too much for one email.

Leaving Bali

Today we are leaving Bali. Kuta is the spring break capital for all young Australians and at this point we have partied too much and need something different. We are on our way to Sulawesi which is an Island north of here. Note: Indonesia is composed of around 15000 islands. There we will visit Tana Toraja where they have interesting burial ceremonies with bull sacrifices and crazy celebrations. The people that die are left in the house with the rest of the family because they believe that they have not truly died. Sometimes they are left in the house for up to 5 years. It depends on how much money the family has, the more money the faster the burial will take place. Remember that these people's houses are really small. But, the community is wonderful and everyone just celebrates the dead person's life. The whole community celebrates. They are even very welcoming of foreigners. We met two really cool Slovenian girls that told us about this place and showed us some wicked pics of the ceremonies.

We will be in tana toraja for 2-3 days after that we go to the north east coast of this island to a tiny almost secluded island called Bunaken. There we will go scuba diving for one week. Check out the web site just google Two fish diving! This is where Mykie's sister leaned to dive. The best part about this place is that the only people on it are the 15 or so that are learning to dive. This is a rarity in Indonesia since there are so many divers everywhere. Sometimes all you see underwater is divers. That tends to ruin the experience. Mykie and I are really excited about scuba diving. It is a whole new world.

After that we will most likely make our way down to Singapore and then Malaysia.....

Bali part 2

Just a really short email for now. LOL i guess i always say that!

We are having a great time in Kuta. We went white water rafting in the most amazing jungle ever! we rafted for 2.5 hours. it was a really long rafting experience but I loved it! We were really lucky because the scenery consisted of water falls and breath taking landscape. it was hard to focus on paddling. The water was amazingly warm and it came from a fresh spring! what an experience being surrounded by 100 foot cliffs and all jungle. God asia is cool!!!!!!!!!

we went to a temple in uluwatu and this place is on top of a gigantic cliff overlooking the indian ocean and it is supposed to have an amazing sunset but we watched a trasditional balinese dance while the sun was setting so i really didnot see the sun go down so much.

This dance consisted of 70 men chanting for one hour straight. I recorded video that i will post when we return to OZ. We have never heard anything this cool before.

we are going to start making moves prob tomorrow so i shall keep you posted on where we move.

still the same.... we are loving it here.

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