The Lion City

Legend has it that a Sumatran prince once visited one of the islands at the southern tip of present day peninsular Malaysia and sighted a lion there. He named the island Singapura, meaning city of lions, and it's to Singapore that my travels have most recently taken me.

Another airport, another time to have to say goodbye to Emma for a while. This was the third hard airport situation we've had since October (Heathrow and La Paz were the other two) and the knowledge that this would be the last stretch of time we would be apart did little to help things along. Emma's now remaining in Bali until after Matt arrives next Thursday.

Singapore is quite a culture shock after having got used to Bali and Lombok for the last month. Streamlined skyscrapers dominate the CBD, sleek shopping malls provide most of the entertainment (according to my guide, shopping is the national sport of Singapore) and an ultramodern subway system glides people around underneath the metropolis with the utmost efficiency.

Singapore acts as the principle business hub of South East Asia and in some ways Singapore is like a microcosm of Asia itself. It is home to a Chinatown, a Little India and an islamic quarter, Kampung Glam. The main language is English, but Mandarin, Malay and Tamil are quite close behind. It has an extraordinary mix of Asian cultures like no other city I've been to. I was at first surprised when the book put so much emphasis on staying and eating in Little India and Chinatown, since I thought that by doing this you would miss out on the 'native' Singaporean experience. But that is exactly what Singapore is: a heady mix of all things Asian.

As far as I'm concerned, one of the major plus points of having a diverse mixture of Asian cultures here is the wide range of culinary delights that are available. Singapore has a good attitude towards public eating; the majority of food sellers are located in 'hawker sites', arcades where cheap eats are available in a variety of different food styles. I pointedly decided to stay in Little India for this exact reason: I love Indian food.

Today, as well as going to see not one but two films at the cinema (Die Hard and HP, I have to catch up with everyone back home!), I visited the Asian Civilizations museum in the Colonial District. This was one of the best museums I've visited while I've been away, and I managed to take in a fair amount of information about the cultures of Asia. I got museum overload after about an hour so I took a stroll around the city. Tomorrow I'm flying to Phuket, but I'm considering a third film before I go. Come on, it's The Simpsons!

Authentic Bali: volcanoes, lush landscapes and laid back villages

I've been loving Indonesia for the last week. We've discovered the laid back, cultural and beautiful sides of Bali that were evading us before, and our experience here is all the better for it.

I mentioned in my last post that we were heading to the Lombok countryside to trek to the top of Gunung Rinjani, the island's highest peak. I should learn not to so specifically postulate what we are planning, since when I do that the plan tends to end up on the floor, in tatters, shat on and run over by the caterpillar tracks of a large combat-ready tank. For various reasons our plans didn't work out, so we decided to go back to Bali. That was probably the best course we could have taken, as we've really enjoyed our time back here.

We aimed for the village of Tirta Gangga, a sleepy place surrounded by padi fields and rainforested hillsides; a place not yet 'discovered' en masse by the tourists who visit Bali. We arrived at a hotel and asked for one night's stay, which in the course of things became four nights. We spent our time reading, walking to nearby rural villages across the fields and visiting the water palace for which the village is famous.







We also hatched a plan to trek to the top of Gunung Agung, the 3142m sacred volcano of Bali. Indonesia is a place where you can make seemingly anything happen, if you have enough money. Any jock on the street will, within 30 seconds, be able to find you transport to anywhere on the island. Extrapolating this idea further, given a bit of time and a smile you can get other things organised. So thinking, we asked our hotel man whether anyone would be able to drive us to and from and guide us up Gunung Agung, and a little while later we had it all nailed down and sorted. At 12:15am the next day, we met up with our guide and driver and headed up to Pasar Agung, the temple at the bottom of the mountain.

We donned saris to enter the temple and gave our guide a moment to pray and ask the gods for our safety on the mountain. He had also previously left an offering to the gods in our hotel, presumably to protect us both on our drive to the mountain and on our ascent of it. The way Indonesians drive, however, he probably should have done several offerings. As it turned out our trip was entirely accident-free. We trekked through the night in order to make it to the summit for sunrise, and this midnight start made it all the more worthwhile. We had been worried that the foreboding rain earlier in the evening would prevent the top from being clear. It turned out that at sunrise Bali was all covered in cloud, but our mountain poked out of the top of it. We had views across to Rinjani on Lombok, and all over the south and east of Bali itself.

We returned to Pasar Agung with our mentalist guide Bob, so named because he's obsessed with Bob Marley and Bob Dylan. He was great fun; he spoke little English so we mainly got by on common Bob Marley songs. In true entrepreneurial Indonesian style he sorted us our transport to Ubud today too.







We're now back in Ubud, which we visited near the start of our trip here, and we are looking forward to having a couple of nights in a slightly posher hotel before I leave. I'm not at all looking forward to leaving Emma for another four and three quarter months. On a lighter side, however, Harry Potter 7 is out and I've got a copy. Fans of HP unite: this is an exciting time!

Upping the chill factor

Some of you may have been disappointed at the amount of beach-time I have logged on this trip. I'm sure that many people would utilize the privilege of a trip like this to maximize their tans and try to spend as much time as possible soaking up the beach vibes. Most of you, however, know me well enough to know that I don't really do beaches, and that I prefer mountains. Over the last few days, however, Emma and I have been in an island paradise that was worth doing absolutely nothing in. Barring the fact that we both became rather ill, I quite enjoyed it.

I shalln't (is that the correct spelling? I can't ever remember writing that before) be giving you a blow-by-blow account of our illnesses. It suffices to say that we both expelled nutrient-rich organic material out of both ends, almost at the same time. You need know no more about that.

In the times when we weren't toiling on or over the toilet, we were mostly reading, chilling or snorkelling. The main drawcard of South East Asia is its beautiful aquatic environment. All around Indonesia, Malaysia, The Phillipines and Thailand are coral reefs swarming with tropical fish, turtles and small sharks. The Gili islands, where we have spent the last few days, were no exception, and we enjoyed leisurely exploring some of the aquatic world with the aid of a mask and snorkel.

Life on Gili Air is very laid back, and most of the time you are no more than 100 metres from someone lazily strumming a guitar or sipping a Bintang (the local beer). The three Gili islands lie just offshore of Lombok, and the main economic drive here is tourism. Spending some time on the islands gave me time to think a bit more about Indonesia and reflect on my negative experiences which I spoke about in my last blog. I understand more now that many of the people so annoying me previously are poor and at their wits end. I guess I just wasn't expecting it, which is why it caught me off guard.

Here are some pictures with captions if you hover.









We're now back on the mainland in Sengiggi and are planning to trek up Gunung Rinjani, Lombok's highest volcano and the second highest peak in Indonesia. That means we'll be in the mountains, and I'm getting pretty excited. The idea of going to look for Komodo dragons has been shelved for the moment. We got our priorities sorted! I'll leave you with this sunset picture I took, which I'm quite proud of.

Ripped off when someone sees ya, that's life in Indonesia

It's been a week now since we arrived in Bali and we are now sitting in Lombok, another small island just east of Bali. We got here yesterday after 6 days of venturing to see the best bits of Bali whilst trying not to get too ripped off by the all-to-expert hawkers, touts and bus drivers that service the island.

Bali seems like paradise to most westerners who come to visit; its endless warm beaches with jewel-coloured water, blanket of tropical forest and fertile padi fields and its towering conical volcanoes all seem exotic and fresh to its visitors from foreign lands. However as I sit here I am being stared through the window by an old man who seems to think that by continually gesturing through the glass to me that he is in possession of a sizeable number of rather rancid looking bananas he will successfully entice me into buying his produce. A polite shake of the head or 'no thank you' just does not cut it here: these people are persistent. It can get extremely annoying and I have not experienced this incessant badgering anywhere else in the world. I've heard that India and Marrakech are the worst places for this; I dread to think what they're like. You learn in Indonesia not to sit in restaurants which have alleyways along their flanks; you will be badgered as you try to eat your meal. I know that I am from a different culture and I should accept these things, but given that these people are selling to westerners you would surely think that they would learn that by hawking us in such a way they are doing their business no good. It suffices to say that this, together with a bus driver who overcharged us by a factor of 10 and a 'guardian of the temple' who originally insisted his guiding was a free service, and later asked that we pay him an extortionate sum (we didn't), has partially spoilt my experience here.

Anyway, that's enough ranting. Here are some photos with captions of what we have seen so far in Bali:











In other news, Emma and I are becoming pretty good at learning Bahasa, the main language in Indonesia. We can now count arbitrarily high and we get smiles from locals when we try to use their lingo. Hopefully this will endear us more to these people and will mean we're less likely to get ripped off. There's my English sense of optimism coming through again; I mustn't let that get out of control!

I promise my next post will not be so grumpy! We're off to the Gili islands for lots of snorkelling and relaxing on the beach, before trying to find a way to get to Komodo islands to see their infamous namesake dragons!

Wine, crocodiles and rock art

It's been another quite busy couple of weeks which is why I've been a bit slack on the blogging. There's now too much to talk about in detail so I'll mention some of the highlights from the last little while here in Australia.

After returning to Perth from our trip up the coast to Coral Bay, we hooked up with my cousin Emma who very kindly allowed us to stay in a holiday home that she was given a free weekend in, south of Perth in the Margaret River region of WA.

Margaret River sits in a section of land that juts out west from the rest of the state and has a climate particularly suited to growing grapes for wine. After our quick few days in Adelaide which didn't permit us a stay in the famous Barossa Valley of South Australia (wine buffs will know it), we were looking forward to spending some time in the Margaret River region, a lesser known but no less enticing wine-producing region. Whilst the hot climate of the Barossa Valley produces predominantly Shiraz labelled wines such as those by Wolf Blass and Jacob's Creek, Margaret River's climate is more suited to, amongst others, Cabernet and Merlot grapes.

The three of us spent a really enjoyable weekend chatting, cooking, drinking wine and beer, admiring the rocky coastline and tasting wine, chocolate and cheese. It was the first time that I had experienced wine tasting and it was the first time I can honestly say I tasted big difference between different wines. It was educational, but great fun too. Emma has one or two photos of us wine tasting on her blog. We'll definitely be looking out for MR wines when we get back to the UK. You may have heard of Leeuwin Estate wines, and a large number of other wineries export their liquid back to the UK, so look out for it.

After catching a lift back to Perth with cousin Emma, girlfriend Emma and I flew to Darwin, where over the last few days we've been exploring nearby Kakadu National Park. Kakadu is Australia's largest National Park (which is saying something), and it is also a World Heritage Site, which gives you an idea that it a Pretty Cool Place, with capital Ps and a C.



Kakadu is an area that the Aborigines have been living in for thousands of years. Literally thousands - at least 20,000. I think that is astonishing. That is long before any of the history you learn about at school - several times as long ago as the Ancient Greeks and Egyptians. We learnt a lot about Aboriginal culture and tried to imagine what it must have been like for the indigenous people when the White Man came and overran their land. The most poignant reminder of the clash between Aboriginal and Western cultures is right in front of you every time you walk down the main street in Darwin. The indigenous people have never properly fit in with the new society and are reduced to begging on the pavements. It's sad evidence of how mistreated they have been, not only during the initial wave of European settlement in Australia, but as recently as the 1970s, at which time they still did not have the same rights as the whites.

The Aboriginal culture in Kakadu manifests itself in the rock art that is visible at many sites around the park. These are thousands of years old and it is like stepping back into a completely different era when you are faced with examples of these drawings. In the example below, the skeletal figure in the top right is lightning man, one of the protagonists in the Aboriginal Creation Period. He now resides at one of the many 'Dreaming Places' in the rock nearby. These sites are sacred to Aboriginals and it is important that they are not disturbed by outsiders.





Kakadu is also home to amazing natural beauty, and one of the habitats, the wetlands, are home to crocodiles! We observed one crocodile basking under a tree trunk, but all other efforts at croc spotting turned out to be fruitless. Instead, we saw many species of birds.



After hitch hiking around Kakadu for a few days we returned to Darwin yesterday, and now we are biding time before going to the airport this evening for our flight to Indonesia. I'd better start learning some Indonesian phrases then!