A Major Change of Place

As I write this I am enjoying my last day in India. Or, depending on preferences and priorities, my last day in a 5 Star hotel (which might be a more accurate description). In all seriousness, we do wish we could spend more time in India exploring the "small" towns (less than 10 million people, hah) but at this point in the trip I simply don't think Michelle and I have the patience and energy to tackle another country of this size and scope. 6 months ago we'd have dived right in, but now we're content to recharge our batteries in the Grand Hyatt and plan out the rest of the trip. And for the opportunity to do that we are infinitely thankful to my Dad for being able to meet us in this "Godforsaken Country" (his words, not ours)and letting us live the high life for a solid week. Thanks Dad- it's been an awesome week!

In a switch back to semi-normality, we head to Oman tonight. Oman doesn't have cheap backpacker hotels like we're used to (less than $10 a night) so we're going to have to stay in an actual hotel for a couple nights (closer to $70 a night). Yuk. That great news, however, is that we have a friend that currently resides in Oman who will be driving up to meet us in Muscat. We'll have a friendly face around, a means of transportation, and a ride back to the south of the country so we get to see a larger area. Plus, having a free place to stay for a short while never hurts!

Also, as you may notice, we've added yet another map to the right sidebar of this website. The amount of ground we've covered on the trip has gotten to be too large for one map, so we now have a map for everything up to India, and are starting a new one for all of the Middle East.

Well, Michelle wants to eat breakfast (go figure) so I guess this blog post is over. =)

Not fun Stuff

For those of you who haven't heard, we got robbed. Nothing violent, we just had our backpack sitting on the floor between us at an internet cafe and it got snatched... no idea how one of us didn't notice. While it didn't have much money in it, it did have my passport and camera along with a few other small things. Losing the camera is heartbreaking, as it was terribly expensive, but at least we didn't' lose any pictures (they are all backed up on this site).

The fact that the passport was taken has just been a mess. We first had to file a police report. Then we went to the US Embassy and got a new temporary passport issued within a few hours. Then we went back to the Indian Consulate and got a new Indian Visa issued (thankfully it only took 1 day this time, as opposed to 11 like last time). It couldn't just be easy though... after all of the running around and paperwork, we ran into trouble because the Malaysian authorities won't let me leave the country without having an entry stamp (which was in the old passport). I needed to visit the Immigration Headquarters which is in an entirely different city about 30 minutes outside Kuala Lumpur, and because of their office hours, it simply wasn't possible to do it in time for my Friday flight 9am flight. As a result, we've had to change my flight to Saturday (yet again), and Michelle left on Friday (this morning). Since her passport wasn't stolen we would have had to pay to change her flight, but the airline pushed mine back for free, so we decided the best way to do it was to split up for a day. While she flew to India, I traversed the Malaysian Immigration system, which is essentially a nightmare in a building. But it should be done now (knock on wood!) so hopefully we will be rejoined at about this time tomorrow.

Trip Statisticals

We are still in Kuala Lumpur. Good news is, our Visa situation for India is worked out, my Dad is going to meet us in India for sure, we get to see Sri Lanka for a few hours on our layover, and we are flying out of here on Friday April 9th. Unfortunately we still have to hang around here all week, but we're finding ways to pass the time. For example last night, while we sat around enjoying Paul Blart: Mall Cop on HBO, we decided to compile some statistics on the trip so far. Here's what we've got (per person)

Miles - 23,000 (strait line distances on Google Earth - underestimate)
Flights - 11
Bus Rides - 42
Countries - 8
Hotels - 59
Boats - 15
Trains - 2
Times we've tried to kill each other - 47
Books Read - 20
Games of Rummy - 291 (154 wins for Jason, 137 for Michelle)
Pairs of Sunglasses lost - 5
Trips to Clinics - 11 (motorbike crash, dengue fever, rabies shots, stomach problems)

And there you have it, our trip in a nutshell.

Quick Update

So we're in Kuala Lumpur, and we're waiting for our Indian Visa. We have no idea how long it will take... they told us "At least 5 business days, but possibly 2-3 business days," which doesn't even make sense. Anyway, while we've working on missing our flight to India we've also taken advantage of the good internet access and uploaded lots of pics. If you use the links on the right, all pictures have been uploaded in the Eastern Indonesia, Underwater Indonesia, and Malaysia folders. If you'd prefer to see the summarized version, just use the links below.

Singapore Pictures

Indonesia Pictures

A Week in Paradise

The Togean Islands were nothing less! We spent about 9 days on the island of Kadidiri and stayed at a fantastic place called Black Marlin. We had our own little bungalow, fresh fish and veggies for all of our meals, and spectacular diving and snorkeling. Jason and I decided to take the course for our advanced scuba diving certification, and had an excellent instructor from California. We each did 6 dives, including a dive at night, a deep dive (100 ft!), and a wreck dive. There is a B-24 bomber that was shot down in 1945 in the area. The plane landed in tact on the water and floated for over an hour before sinking gently, so it is in great condition. We really enjoyed the dive to it, and Jason said it was one of his favorite dives so far. The deep dive was also very cool, and was probably my favorite of the trip. Being able to dive that deep is so exciting!! The night dive didn't go so great for me...I was scared! There was quite a strong current during it as well which didn't help, and I was just a bit uncomfortable with it. I completed the dive though, but I think I'll wait awhile to try another. When we weren't diving we were snorkeling and finding lots of eels, parrotfish, clownfish, sweetlips, and countless others along with beautiful corals. There were a few nights that we had fires on the beach, and we really enjoyed the other people that were staying at the hotel. I could have stayed much much longer! Jason was able to use an underwater camera for 2 of the dives and got some good pictures. We will be in Kuala Lumpur in a couple of days and hope to get our pictures updated there, including the ones from the previous blog post!

Tomorrow we leave Indonesia which is a bit sad. It is by FAR my favorite country on the trip. Easily has the best scenery, best wildlife, nicest people, most diversity, and we have so much more of the country to see! We have spent over 6 weeks here and it's not nearly enough. Anyone trying to figure out their next vacation should come here :) Tonight is our last night here, and we are going to try spicy dog meat! Tomorrow we fly to Kuala Lumpur and will be scrambling to get our visa for India. Then that will be all for Southeast Asia! We're excited to move on to another part of the world.

I See Dead People

Yesterday was wild! We are in Tana Toraja in central Sulawesi and spent yesterday visiting a few villages. The Torajan people are really fascinating, particularly their funeral and burial customs. When a person dies they keep the body in their home for months while saving up money for elaborate funerals. They still talk with the person and sit and have tea with them. Most funerals are held during July and August and are huge events. After the funeral some bodies are put in tombs in cliffsides--they literally carve a grave out of the stone, which you can see in some of our pictures. Others are put in wood coffins and put inside caves, which you can also see in our pictures. We went in one cave that was quite large and filled with many dozens of coffins. Many had rotted and skulls and other loose bones were strewn about the ground. In one part many skulls had been meticulously placed on ledges right inside the entrance. Jason and I were the only ones in the cave at the time and our light wasn't working well, so it was a bit eery. Jason would use his camera flash to light up an area, and we could see glimpses of skulls and rotting wood and clothes every time the light went on--it reminded us both of a horror movie. As we stumbled through I didn't want to reach out and grab the rock for fear of grabbing a body! Outside of the caves they carve shelves into the rock where wooden effigies of the dead stand. They change the clothes on these statues regularly and place offerings beside the coffins (food, drinks, cigarettes, etc.). One of the caves smelled a bit, and we could tell there was a fresher body in there. It was fascinating to see all of it! Unfortunately there are no funerals while we are here so we don't get to see that. It's a really great place though, and there are virtually no tourists.

Tomorrow we are leaving here and heading to the Togean Islands! They are pretty remote islands with fantastic diving and snorkeling; we've been looking forward to going there for a very long time! We will probably spend at least a week there and won't have internet access, so we'll be unavailable for awhile. We're going to definitely do a few dives (hopefully see some sharks!), some snorkeling and swimming, and lots of relaxing. It should be a great time, and we'll update again when we're back to civilization!

P.S. Actually the pictures might not get up, so if they don't check back in a couple of weeks if you want to see the pictures of the graves!

Java + Bali = Jolly

The last week or so has been a crash course of Indonesia. We left Singapore and headed to Jakarta, the capital of the country with 9 million people. It's a far cry from Singapore, but a lot cheaper. We got there late in the evening, and the next day went sightseeing. What we failed to realize, however, was that it was Muhammad’s birthday- let me tell you, a country with 200 million Muslims is not the place you want to be on that day. Oh well, it was an interesting experience... albeit a tad crowded. The next day we booked a train ticket for the 9 hour ride to Yogyakarta. We accidentally booked 'executive class', which was expensive, but man was it nice. Sure, there were people riding on the roof. And sure, most of the train was a crowded messy smoky mess. But we were in AC and extended-legroom-bliss, so we didn't mind in the least. In Yogyakarta we got a great deal on a hotel. $10/night goes a LONG way there, but we decided to forego the A/C and TV and get a nice pool instead. That may have been the best decision on the trip so far. The next couple of days were spent reading, swimming, and shopping at the many little markets in the area. Good fun!

This is where things got crazy. Our last morning in Yogya we got up at 7am to catch a supposedly 10 hour bus ride to the active Bromo Volcano. We got there at around 7:30 that night, exhausted. We got to bed at around 10:30, and then woke up at 3:30am and headed out on a morning trek to see the sunrise over the volcano. The experience ranks as one of the coolest natural things I’ve ever seen, but man, we were tired. After getting back at about 8:30am we took a 2 hour nap, grabbed a lunch (which wasn’t very good) and jumped on another bus, this time headed to Bali. It’s a long ride, followed by a ferry ride, followed by another long ride. We were nudged out of our not-quite-awake but still can’t sleep mode (typical of bus rides) at 3:30am, and dropped off at a bus station in Bali. We had no idea where we were or where to go, so we got a taxi to take us 30min to the tourist area. Finding hotels in Vietnam was fun. You get to scout out the area you are going to stay and find a good deal. Over 5 months into our trip, the thrill is dissipating. At 4am, the thrill is absolutely gone, especially with drunken tourists and prostitutes roaming about. To be fair, the prostitutes were somewhat helpful on nice places to stay, but I digress. After a few crummy hours of sleep we got up to our first day in Bali. We both sincerely apologize to anyone we spoke to that day. We were grumpy, and may have sounded unappreciative or simply pissed off. We were both, and tired.

Anyhow, flash foreword to today, and Bali is great. We’ve been here a couple of days now and have done some shopping, eaten great food, laid at the beach, and went surfing (with only minor injuries MICHELLE). Tomorrow we’ve got a 7am flight to the remote island of Sulawesi, for one of the most adventurous parts of our entire trip. We can’t wait!

Pics of all this should be pretty much uploaded by now.