Days 10-11 (July 27-28, 2014): Homeward Bound!

All good things must come to an end.  Sigh.  But that reality is made all the easier when you're heading home to a place that is AWESOME, like Nova Scotia.

Our feet hit the floor at 6:30am, and we were on the beach a few minutes later to see the sun rise.  There's something about a deserted beach at sunrise that makes you realize how amazing our planet is.

We had a few administrative items to take care of before our last buffet breakfast.  So it was 8:45am before we were at the omelette station in El Patio, the Melia's breakfast restaurant.  The gamelon player was there again to greet us with sweet Indonesian sounds!

There is an excellent art gallery / museum, "Pacifika", next to the Melia, which opens at 10am.  We were there as the doors opened.  A really good collection of Indonesian art by everyone from Dutch to French to Indo-Chinese artists.  As you travel the globe, the similarities of life in every country strike you, as well as how cultures have evolved in every country.  Take ceremonial masks, for example:  every ancient culture had them in some shape or other.  And Indonesia was no exception. 

We also saw replicas at the gallery of two of the scary characters featured in last night's cultural performance. One reminded us of Mr. snuffleupagus (Sesame Street fame) and the other, Freddie Kruger from Elm Street. What do you think?

By 11am, we were starting our last beach day.  The tide was still high enough for a good swim, so we both went in.  How we wish our local Halifax beaches had water this easy to slide into!

The hotel was good enough to let us continue using the facilities until our cab picked us up at 3pm.  We took a quick Italian lunch in one of the restaurants, got cleaned up and ready for our 38-hour door-to-door trek home, and climbed into our taxi, which was driven by Ngurah's brother (our driver yesterday).

The routing home is Denpasar (Bali) via Air Asia to Singapore.  Then aboard the spiffy Singapore Airlines double-decker Airbus A-380 to London. 

Then good ole' Air Canada over the Atlantic to Halifax, to complete our 11-day round-the-world trip, with an anticipated arrival on Monday afternoon.

Assuming all will go according to schedule, tomorrow night will be spent in our own bed at home.

Thanks so much for tuning into this blog!  It's been fun sharing it, and hopefully, not too onerous to read.  Happy travels to all. 

Day 9 (July 26, 2014): Exploring Bali

How does one start to explain Bali?  Here are some facts:  Bali is an island and province of Indonesia with a population of 4.2 million. It is located between Java to the west and Lomboko to the east. Its capital, Denpasar, is located at the southern part of the island. And it is predominantly Hindu. In fact, after six hours of touring around the island today, we were left with that single overall impression: Hinduism permeates everything here. 

I had negotiated a driver outside the hotel complex on Friday evening and - true to his word - young Ngurah was at the hotel front lobby at 8am sharp. And boy, did he ever have questions!  His dream is to move to LA and make lots of money so his questions centered around life in America (he couldn't seem to grasp that Canada was a separate country). 

Okay, so Hinduism permeates life here. The second overall impression is that traffic makes getting anywhere painful. And I mean PAINFUL. There doesnt seem to be much of a highway existence. Getting from place to place means driving the urban, narrow, crowded streets from town to town. And one town simply melds into the next. 

Ubud is a major city two hours north of Nua Dusa (the beach resort area). It's a town filled with artisans of every type and their stores line the streets, mile after mile: paintings, Hindu carvings in stone and wood, furniture, etc. We arrived at Ubud's Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary at 10am and, just as Ngarah promised, the park was filled with monkeys (grey haired and greedy long tailed Balinese macaques) and temples. Quite the place!

From there it was on to see the most amazing terraced rice fields we have ever seen. The pics speak for themselves.

The Balinese plant three rice crops every year. 

Next, it was on to a coffee plantation to see how the luwak helps produce the richest coffee bean in the world!  Here's a luwak:

The little guys are picky: they only select the best beans, digest them, poop them out (sorry!), and then the pooped out beans are roasted (these are they!!):

I had a cup of the stuff

(the beans sell for $50 per 100g) - an interesting flavour indeed!  We also sampled a number of other coffees - yes, all these were presented to us!

Temples are everywhere. And tiny shrines are everywhere.

And people set food offerings all over the sidewalks - everywhere!! - three times a day.

So one needn't go far to experience a temple. But Ngarah took us to one of the more major complexes southeast of Ubud. We had to adorn sarongs to enter. 

Pam had fun trying out the musical instruments used for ceremonies. 

This isn't related to anything, except to show something local that is bizarre... All along the streets, shops well bottles of gasoline! Can you imagine that happening in Canada?!

By the time we were finished at the temple, it was 1pm. And the noise and traffic and incense of Bali were making us long for the beach at the Melia. After all, Bali is our end-of-vacation rest spot. So we felt we had gotten a good sense of life here and headed back to the hotel. By 2pm we said good bye to Ngarah, wished him all the best with his LA dreams, and hit the beach and pool until 5pm. Sitting on the beach, we were surprised to see a long Hindu procession coming to perform a ceremony at a small beachfront temple. 

Dinner was at one of the hotel's restaurants. Following dinner, we took in a short cultural show which showed some of Bali's great costumes and told stories to traditional music which we couldn't figure out for the life of us!! Fun to see, nonetheless. 

And so ended our last full day of vacation.  The long trip home starts on Sunday. 

Day 8 (July 25, 2014): Celebrating 22 Years

After Thursday's exhausting trip from Brunei to Bali, it was nice to wake up in such a tropical paradise. Our hotel is the Melia Bali, located in the resort strip of Nusa Dua. Picture Bali as an island, with a little peninsula sticking out at the bottom. Nusa Dua is located there. 

We have had great experiences with the Spanish Melia chain in Cuba and Madeira and Bali promises the same good experience. Here are a few hotel shots:

The hotel is located in a small quiet cove, where the tide change is dramatic.  This was the scene after breakfast when we arrived at the beach:

This was the scene just after lunch:

Basically, it was a beach day. After seven days of go-go-go, it was time for a battery recharge. And that's just what we did:  Beach. Walk. Lunch. Pool. A perfect recharge. 

On our walk, we came across our first small Hindu temple, which was on the beach in front of the Melia. 

We also came across this tsunami evacuation sign - a poignant reminder of the terrible Southeast Asia tsunami a number of years ago. 

We called it a day at 5pm and went back to the room to get ready for our 6pm anniversary dinner reservation at the hotel's Mediterranean restaurant. We were the first ones there and they had a table set up for us outside. A perfect setting under the palms, despite the bats that kept flying overhead at dusk! 

Post-dinner we did another walk around the hotel grounds and down to the beach, where a young couple was hosting their wedding reception - a pertinent reminder of our own special day on July 25, 1992. Seems like yesterday. 

Day 7 (July 24, 2014): Life In a Water Village

Difficult to believe our time in Brunei has come to an end. But then, it was planned to be a short visit, enough to get a taste of such a small country on the edge of Malaysia's Borneo.

Rise 'n shine was around 7:30am, followed by the breakfast buffet at the Radisson. As a side-note, we have had such an excellent all-round experience at both the Radisson in Shanghai and again here in Brunei, from the food to the genuine attentiveness of the staff. It's a chain we will probably include in our travels more from here on.  But I digress!  

We hopped in a taxi at 9:45am and headed for the main jetty on the Harbourfront. Within a minute, we had negotiated with a water taxi to take us out and about, to see the Sultan's palace from the river (it's not otherwise possible to see it from the city), to search for some proboscis monkeys, and to tour the main sights of the various water villages that together make up Kampong Ayer, the largest water village in the world. 

Istana Nurul Imam Palace is the official residence of the Sultan of Brunei, Hassanal Bolkiah and the seat of the government. The palace is located on the banks of the Brunei River. It is possible to visit it outside of Ramadan but such was not possible for us. From the river we could see only the rooftop. 

Our driver also pointed out the new palace currently under construction. 

We soon meandered into a small tributary off the river, which felt like a journey into the heart of Borneo!

We were in search of proboscis monkeys (long-nosed), which are most active early in the morning and again at night. Despite being outside these two windows, we did see two sleepy monkeys from a distance in the trees. Our driver said he'd knock $10 off the fare if he didn't find us some monkeys, so needless to say, he got his full tariff! Here's an Internet photo to give you an idea of what they look like.

Finally we toured Kampong Ayer, or the Water Village, which is an area of  the capital city, in Brunei Bay. 39,000 people (10% of Brunei's population) live there.  All of the Water Village buildings are constructed on stilts. It is totally self contained, with schools, mosques, a fire station, shops, etc.  Absolutely fascinating!

After this amazing morning, we said  farewell to our driver who, by the way, showed us his house in the village, where he lives with his six kids:

He dropped us back at the Harbourfront of Bander Seri Begawan,

and we headed to the local market. Bander Seri Begawan is known as "Venice of the East", and this photo shows why:

Anyway, about the market...  Ugh -- more ole stinky fish than you could imagine. See these piles? They are dried minnows. Yum. What on earth would one do with these?! Pizza toppings maybe?!

From there, we went to the Royal Regalia Museum, which is an amazing collection of all things related to His Royal Highness. Check out his ceremonial chariot!

Back to the Radisson for an hour by the pool before heading to the airport at 2pm for our Air Asia flight to Denpasar, Bali (via Kuala Lumpur). We arrived 11:30pm, and ran the gauntlet of crazy visa /immigration/ bag collection/ customs/ X-ray/ ATM search/ non-corrupt taxi driver selection. By the time we arrived at our Melia Bali Hotel, it was 1:30am. 

And that's all for July 24th. Falling into bed!

Day 6 (July 23, 2014): A Country to Bite Off and Chew

Today was our day to get a sense of this tiny country called Brunei Darussalam.  Given the limited bus system here and the cost of taxis, we made an inquiry of Avis last night, to see if there might be a last minute car available.  Just our luck:  the guy pulled some strings and got us one. Mind you, it was old thing -- over 159,000 kms!  I think he might have borrowed his friend's car for us. At the end of the day, it got us where we wanted to go today.

But before we get going with today, let me introduce you to two very important people here in Brunei: His Majesty, the Sultan, and his wife. Their pictures are everywhere, and they are revered.

And now, on with the day!  We were up at 8am, had breakfast at the hotel (nothing pork on the menu, it goes without saying), picked up the car, and started out by 10am. I've driven in Europe, Australia, Africa, South America, and North America, but never in Asia. Asian traffic tends to be insane. Add in driving on the left, and we figured it was not a wise thing to do.  But we must have had a guardian angel today, as all worked out well. 

Brunei has as population of just over 400,000. We were pleased to find an excellent motorway / highway system, which made getting around easy.  First stop was the Technology Museum, where the are good replicas of the structures in the world's largest water village, located next to the capital city.

(We will be visiting the water village tomorrow and will share more then.)  

Then it was on to The Empire Hotel, about 45 minutes outside Bander Seri Begawan. Built at a cost of $1.1 billion US, this is quite the pad!  It features vaulted ceilings so high they almost make your nose bleed,

and a Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course.  Suites are $22,000 per night.  But the place was empty. And I mean EMPTY. Pam and I walked in like we owned the place and started checking it out.

We spent an hour walking the hotel, grounds and beach.

A stunning place.  But where were all the Aussies, Europeans, Japanese?  Well, the country forbids booze, so I guess that makes it unappealable for most vacationers. And Muslims probably don't want to hang out on a beach in 32C during Ramadan, when they can't so much as consume a glass of water from sun up to sun down. So the place sits empty.

Then it was back to Bander Seri Begawan to start searching out the capital's main sights. On the way into the city, we stopped for iced coffees at Starbucks. (Yes, it is becoming a daily habit.)  When we got our drinks, we sat down and started to drink them - but the server came along and informed us we had to leave!  Out of respect for Ramadan, it is forbidden to drink or eat in public before sunset, even though you can purchase everything. 

Iced coffees in hand, we headed to Tasek Lama Recreational Park. It was supposed to feature an impressive waterfall to make the sweltering walk worthwhile. But the waterfall turned out to be a trickle. 

Building-wise, we started with the largest mosque in the country: Jame'Asr Hassanal Bolkiah Mosque.

The city boasts some very impressive government buildings, clearly funded by the oil that started flowing out of Brunei in the 1920s.  

On a man-made lagoon in the city centre stands the 1958 Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque, named for the 28th Sultan of Brunei. 

At the waterfront, water taxi drivers ply for customers to run across to the water village of Kamping Ayer.  

We turned down many offers for a ride across, and opted instead to leave that til tomorrow and buy take-out to take back to our hotel room.  

We ate dessert in the business lounge, I returned the car to Avis, did a run, and then we watched "The Great Gatsby".  We will finish up Brunei tomorrow and head to Bali (via Kuala Lumpur) in the later afternoon.

And that's a wrap on July 23rd!  Thanks for tuning in.