How have 299 days gone by so fast? As I am sitting here typing my last blog in Asia, it is unbelievable how far we have traveled, how much we have seen, how many wonderful people we have met and what an amazing time we've had together. S and I remember when we were 2% done with the trip and now that feels like a lifetime ago. We have really had an amazing adventure together and have grown and learned so much. This afternoon we are having coffee with a college student from Jakarta that we have met through couchsurfing before we head to the airport. At 1AM on day 300, we will board our flight to Beijing where, after a 2 hour layover (enough time to enjoy some vegetable steamed buns), we will catch our 1PM flight to New York. Due to the time change, we will be arriving only an hour and forty minutes after we leave Beijing. Over the last few weeks, S and I have decided to try to play a game- recall every day of our trip. Amazingly, we are pretty easily able to remember many memories from every single day of the trip. I don't think there is any better proof of what an advernture we have been on. We are planning to finish the game on our flight out of Asia. As we close that chapter of our life, we are really looking forward to coming home, even though we will definitely miss Asia.
So excited to see all of you so soon.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Friday, May 14, 2010
Bali
We spent the last week on a secluded beach in Bali. It was extremely relaxing. We've been so exhausted from the trip, that we really needed the 5 straight days of doing absolutely nothing. We read, swam and snorkeled- we didn't even leave the resort once, which is very unlike us. While Bali is very touristy, we stayed in a small village on the eastern coast that is surrounded by mountains which are covered by clouds. We had a very spacious bungalow with an attached balcony that overlooked the ocean. We fell asleep listening to the sound of the waves. The area was beautiful, and we met some other friendly travelers who had also taken a year off to tour the world. They gave us advice about adjusting back to the real world when we return home. We traveled all day yesterday, arriving in Jakarta late last night. We spent the morning sightseeing here. Jakarta is not the most tourist friendly place - it's big and ugly and built for cars, not people, but we still saw some interesting stuff in the old quarter, eating at a Dutch-Indonesian place for lunch. Tomorrow, we are treating ourselves to a night in Jakarta's most luxurious hotel- we apparently have our own butler. We have decided that we deserve it! We are very excited for the amazing buffet breakfast and the option of using its pool, tennis or squash courts.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Yogyakarta
Five days ago, we got on a huge ship called the Marisa Nugerra for a 36-hour sea journey to Semarang on the island of Java. The last time we took a long boat ride was in Bangladesh and, while it was very relaxing, the 36-hour journey took 2 days longer than expected, the overpriced food options were limited to potato curry and rice and any crew member aboard the boat wanted "bahsheeh" (tip) before we got off in Dhaka. What made this new boat experience so pleasant is that it actually took an hour less than expected, the deliciously vegetarian food was included and we had a decently spacious private room with A/C, even though it occasionally shut down for a few hours. And no requests for baksheeh.
We spent our first day onland in the not particularly note-worthy city of Semarang before catching a bus to Yogyakarta, the cultural capital of the island. from this point on, we have decided that we can no longer take long bus rides so that has restructured our planning for the rest of the trip.
Architecturally, the city of Yogya is very quaint. The low level homes have clay tile roofs and the narrow alleyways have been fun to explore during the day. Yesterday we visited the kraton, a Javanese palace built in the 9th century, along with the water castle.
This afternoon, we headed to Borobudor, a magnificent Buddhist temple built in the 9th century as well. There were lots of school groups there, each group more excited than the next to take their photos with us. They were very sweet. We had a delicious buffet lunch overloooking rice paddies.
Tomorrow we will visit Prambanon, some Hindu temples often compared to Angkor Wat in Cambodia, but we will be the judge of that. We will spend the night climbing up the still active Mount Merapi before catching a flight the next day to Bali.
We have made reservations to stay at a very isolated beach bunglaow in a rural town on the east coast of the island. We hope to be able to use that time to unwind as we get closer to getting back. We are going to take a yet undetermined amount of time to have a real vacation from our very busy, at lightning speed travel over the last 9 months.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Kura Kura Beach
By S:
Hello everyone - today we are back in pontianak. we spent the last week moving up the west coast of borneo and back. To start we had a long, bizarre day-long adventure getting up to sinkawang, which is theoretically only 3 hours away. sinkawang is a basically a small town in a forgotten province of a far outpost of indonesia, so it's really out there. we were back to zero english and tons of staring on the street. there's nothing really to do in the town so we just spent a
day there, before heading south to Tanjung Gundul, which is really just a village of a few hundred people. we were picked up at the road junction to the village by a guy on a motorbike who took us 3km on an unpaved road to beautiful patch of sand and to large wooden huts. here we stayed at kura kura beach, which is a little beach resort run by charlie, a retired, funny scottish guy. he runs the place with help from his local friend widi. the max capacity is only 7 people, and we were the only guests - so we basically had a kilometer long stretch of the most stunning beach
you've ever seen just to ourselves. we stayed for 3 days and got to know charlie and widi pretty well. the house we stayed in was very beautiful and, with windows facing the beach, we watched the sun rise from our bedroom window every morning. the food was incredible- everyday widi made an elaborate, delicious Indonesian meal from scratch, which was even better than the meal before. we each gained about 10 pounds each. we also visited the local school where vickie taught a lesson to some 8-10 year old girls. they were very sweet and were sad that we could not come back to their class the next day. we have some great pictures. we had a great time, and we are learning a lot about indonesian culture and its often
disturbing history.
we returned to pontianak yesterday. tonight we are heading by boat to semarang, which is on java, the country's main island. from there we expect to explore the rest of java before possibly moving on to the islands further east, time permitting.
Hello everyone - today we are back in pontianak. we spent the last week moving up the west coast of borneo and back. To start we had a long, bizarre day-long adventure getting up to sinkawang, which is theoretically only 3 hours away. sinkawang is a basically a small town in a forgotten province of a far outpost of indonesia, so it's really out there. we were back to zero english and tons of staring on the street. there's nothing really to do in the town so we just spent a
day there, before heading south to Tanjung Gundul, which is really just a village of a few hundred people. we were picked up at the road junction to the village by a guy on a motorbike who took us 3km on an unpaved road to beautiful patch of sand and to large wooden huts. here we stayed at kura kura beach, which is a little beach resort run by charlie, a retired, funny scottish guy. he runs the place with help from his local friend widi. the max capacity is only 7 people, and we were the only guests - so we basically had a kilometer long stretch of the most stunning beach
you've ever seen just to ourselves. we stayed for 3 days and got to know charlie and widi pretty well. the house we stayed in was very beautiful and, with windows facing the beach, we watched the sun rise from our bedroom window every morning. the food was incredible- everyday widi made an elaborate, delicious Indonesian meal from scratch, which was even better than the meal before. we each gained about 10 pounds each. we also visited the local school where vickie taught a lesson to some 8-10 year old girls. they were very sweet and were sad that we could not come back to their class the next day. we have some great pictures. we had a great time, and we are learning a lot about indonesian culture and its often
disturbing history.
we returned to pontianak yesterday. tonight we are heading by boat to semarang, which is on java, the country's main island. from there we expect to explore the rest of java before possibly moving on to the islands further east, time permitting.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Kalimantan
By S:
Today we are in Pontianak, Indonesia on the west coast of Borneo. We are currently situated precisely on the equator. Our hotel is literally about 500m south of the actual line. I only just realized today that after all the miles we've done on this trip, this is our first time crossing the equator. It is brutally hot, so we're
switching our schedule to be out from 6am-noon and then stay indoors until dinner. Otherwise we just can't manage it.
We've been totally re-energized by Indonesia. I think we had kind of gotten bored with the rest of SE Asia and were starting to lose some enthusiasm - but Indonesia has changed everything. Almost as soon as we crossed the border we noticed the changes - it's a lot poorer, more crowded and more chaotic. It's almost India-like, but culturally the people aren't nearly as aggressive and in-your-face about everything. People have been very friendly to us so far and we get smiles and hellos from literally everyone we pass. the food is fantastic - it's a shame that this cuisine is so underrepresented in the West, but then again it's heavy on the peanut
sauce and chillies so i might not be an unbiased observer. our plans as of now are to check out some of the longhouses (occupied by headhunters), and the worlds largest flower (diameter over 3 ft and weighs 25 lbs). after that we'll hit the beach for a days before catching a 2 day boat to java. from there, we're not sure.
Today we are in Pontianak, Indonesia on the west coast of Borneo. We are currently situated precisely on the equator. Our hotel is literally about 500m south of the actual line. I only just realized today that after all the miles we've done on this trip, this is our first time crossing the equator. It is brutally hot, so we're
switching our schedule to be out from 6am-noon and then stay indoors until dinner. Otherwise we just can't manage it.
We've been totally re-energized by Indonesia. I think we had kind of gotten bored with the rest of SE Asia and were starting to lose some enthusiasm - but Indonesia has changed everything. Almost as soon as we crossed the border we noticed the changes - it's a lot poorer, more crowded and more chaotic. It's almost India-like, but culturally the people aren't nearly as aggressive and in-your-face about everything. People have been very friendly to us so far and we get smiles and hellos from literally everyone we pass. the food is fantastic - it's a shame that this cuisine is so underrepresented in the West, but then again it's heavy on the peanut
sauce and chillies so i might not be an unbiased observer. our plans as of now are to check out some of the longhouses (occupied by headhunters), and the worlds largest flower (diameter over 3 ft and weighs 25 lbs). after that we'll hit the beach for a days before catching a 2 day boat to java. from there, we're not sure.
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