Ubud, Bali Indonesia

I arrived in Bali at about 7:55PM. After cleared the immigration/custom and exchanged some TC, I was off to Ubud, the artistic center of Bali in the rain.

Ubud looked deserted when I arrived, I think the rain and recent bombing/warning have kept most of the tourists away.

The place I stayed look really nice in compare to what I stayed in Borneo and all for half the price and with breakfast! The room is tiled with ornated door. The interior is decorated nicely as well. Even though it has no ac (no need since it does not smell and vented well).

In the morning I went for a walk to the moneky forest, people are friendly along the rice paddy fields. I guess the morning/mid-day sun bring out the tourists I did not see last night, but from what I was told, the place is slower than normal.

The streets are lined with souvenir shops that are filled with many finely hand made goods for a fraction price you would find any where. I guess I'll be loading up on gifts from here :)
Intermixed with the shops you get many stylish resturants and coffe shops. The prices are pretty expensive by Indonesian standard, as many are owned by westerners (with higher expense and tax). Food is good in these resturants, but I avoid it and tried the few local resturants.

One thing annoying here is the constant being hassled by the taxi drivers. But I think after my Vietnam exprience, I have a higher tolerance for it now :) Thank you Vietnamese people.

Day two, Mary (from Boneo) arrived, and we went for walk to near by village and rice fields. Even though there are shops and up scale hotels along the way, it was scenic hike none the less.
That evening, we went to the monkey forest temple to watch local hindu religious parade and later that night we went to see some Balinese/Hindu dance. It was good except we sat at the last row, so can't see too well.

Day three, Mary and I chartered a taxi, to goto couple near by hindu temples. Not thing grand, just more of historical values. In fact the hindu temples here are just plain by my standard. It is the custom of the local people that are real facination to the visitors.
BTW, there are more temples here in Bali than houses I was told. After a afternoon of Balinese massage which was pretty good, we went to the monkey forest temple to watch local people in the hindu ritual in the evening. Even though it rained pretty hard, people still carry on the prayer ceremonies. There were also traditional music and plays. One has to dress up in local costume in order to going in to see the ceremony inside the temple. So I bought a full dress for it. Mary deicded to go back early, I stayed on till about 10PM (I was told the ceremony last to 12 or 1 AM). And some people (4 villages were represented here) hava one hour drive back....
After I went back to my guesthouse, I found Mary talking with my neighbor Jack, who is from Hawaii but lived in Bali for over 20 years, now retired (from sarong business) and a surfer. He is very knowledgeble about Balinese culture including that of Balinese people don't trust each (since they gossip a lot), hide themselves when eating except during regious gathering since they consider it as animal behaviour, joke with each other a lot and in public and work places (many involve sexual jokes), has modified caste system, some religious ceremonies near/at tourist areas are bit exaggerated. Anyway, Mary has decided to go with Jack to where ever he is going instead to Amed with me as originally planed, I was kind upset since I changed my plan and paid the transport so we will both be in Amed for new year.

Next morning (day four), Mary felt guity and convinced Jack to goto Amed with us (he has sold everything he owned and now traveled in a mini van with surf boards to catch the waves), so Mary, Jack, and I left for small beach town Amed for new year.

Jack (in his late 40s or early 50s) and Mary (in her early 40s) both into meditation, yoga, mysticism, so they connect prety well. On top of that Jack believed UFO because his mother was abducted by aliens. Anyway, Mary is looking for a man that is compatible with her, so Jack fits the build and Mary seen to grab on to Jack. But I have the feeling that Jack is not that interested and he did us a favorite by going to Amed with us after Mary insist he come. Anyway more on this saga later to come in Amed log.

O, I left all the souvenirs I bought here in Ubud which I intend to come back after 2 nights in Amed.

My Malaysian Borneo Impression

Borneo lived up to my expectation and beyond.
I expected the land of the wild with man made destructions, but I did not expect the hospitality of the local people and extend of Chinese business influence in parts of the area.

Deforestation is pretty much the name of the game here. Old forests are being replaced with massive oil palm plantations. Despite this continue threat and pressure, what little remained still invoked the lush jungle wildiness teeming with life that one imagine of Borneo of long ago. Although the biodiversity here isn't as great as one in the Amazon. But it is much more than jungle of the mainland Southeat Asia, where in places like Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia (may be Thailand as well), people not only cut down the forest for farming, they also eat every living things in sight: birds, insects, mammals, fish! So the jungle felt silent when I visited.

The Malaysian Borneo is relative accessible for people looking for short jungle stay/trekking. Cheap and reliable hopper flights and bus transport make it all possible. But the park system is pretty disorganized and expensive for single budget travelers. Fees for some hike are in the range of $100 regardless how many people. Also the food in most of the park are very expensive and accomandation in some are monopolized so one pays premium for cheap accomandation.

As for cavers, there are many caves to explore in Borneo: from the largest cave in the world Sarawak cave to the source of Chinese birdnest soup Niah caves.

Even though most of the indigenous people have integrated into the modern world, they still remain pretty friendly. Also there are many cute girls here with great looking eyes.

Most other people here are pretty friedly as well.

English and Chinese will get you almost anywhere in Malaysian Borneo.
Chinese population is big here. They own many business, but get shut out of political process and discriminated in everyday Malay society. The native poupulation fairs even worst.

The accomandation here is pretty expensive compare to other near by countries (see my Kuching blog for accomandation nightmare), few internet and laundry places, little or no fresh juices (coming in cans yes). This is all part of modernization process I guess.

One good thing is that they have very good bakeries (thanks to the large Chinese population), almost rival that of Taiwan.

I consider my Borneo experience as a highlight, and definitely recommend it to other people even one that does not fancy wild jungle experience because many people come here to visit the jungle/caves/mountains without doing the trekking (hard work).

Kuching, meow meow

After a 5.5 hour boat ride from Sibu to Kuching that journey through river, ocean, back to river with some big waves, the rain greeted my arrival.

I headed straight to the hotel I had in mind and the friend from Sibu phone in a reservation for me (apparently he is friend to the owner). They gave me a room on the first floor for 35 riggit (just under US$10). But the room smelled awful, and looked nasty. Not willing to offend the friend from Sibu, I decide to take the room.
For the night 3 nights there, I dreaded to go back to the room to sleep. Luckily I find things to do at daytime, and internet at night so I only spend the minumum amount of time in the room. O, I think there are bugs in the room (even with AC on), my body are all itchy from some sort of bites! This might be the worst room I have since the one in Vietnam (Mekong delta tour).

Anyway it was Christmas eve, but there is only a Catholic church near by, so I tried to attend the service (hoping for to sing some familiar hymns), but I arrived to standing room only crowd, and hymns weren't familiar, and my backpack was heavy, so I left after 15 minutes to go to sleep in the nasty room.

btw Kuching in malay means cat, so the city is decorated with many cat statues. It is the largest city in Borneo I believe. The city is charming by Borneo standard, but the weather here isn't as nice this time of the year as other part of Borneo. Also this city is the only one city that not being bombed by the allied in WWII when Japanese occupied the country. On top of this, it was the capital of the reign of white rajahs in 1800s and 1900s, so there are some colonial buildings remained.

on Christmas day morning, I went to near by Kubah national park to see some more catcher plants for couple hours. I saw couple types and one of them I saw it in Mulu as well, but the walk is short and nice none the less, and I think I might be the only hiker for the last few days for the park. Around 12:30PM I headed back to Kuching for lunch.

Soon as I step out the van in Kuching, I felt something sticky and wet on bottom of my left foot. When I looked closer, it was blood! It took few seconds before it dawn on me, leech attack again!! Since I was in public, I decided to walk to a resturant or store before I take off my sandle and have closer look.

I went to a juice place where bought something earlier in the morning and clean up the wound, the leech was gone. after settling down for a needed drink, I took off my right sandle, and you probably guess by now what I found, another fat leech! The owner pried off with his shoe and step on it. This bastard was filled with my blood.

So the final leech vs me result (I hope no more leeches) is leech 2 and me 4.

That afternoon, I tried to visit the Sarawak museum, but it was closed, so I headed to visitor center to find out its schedule. There I saw Mary (from Uncle Tan and Mulu). She just arrived from Mulu. So we decided to get together for dinner.
Later as we were walking, she saw a guy, Marco (Dutch)from Mulu and 3 of us had a "Chirstmas" dinner. The town was pretty quiet on Christmas night.

On the day after Christmas, Mary and I went to visit the near by culture village that have full size of some of the traditional Malaysian dwellings and culture dances.
The building are pretty authentic and well done although many of the actors for demostration seems to have gone home for Christmas. As for the culture dances, it is like bollywood/vegas show of sound and dance. It ends with sound about Malaysia which has nothing to do the the culture. Anyway we did little shopping around the town, and both of us got ourselves a mid-size blow pipe, so you better watch out when I get back home, I need practice.

Finally Mary, Marco, and I met for a seafood dinner, very good, but portion is kind of small for the price. We had drink at river side bar, and say our goodbyes, Marco is going home, Mary is going to Bako NP, and I going to Bali. But I may see Mary again as she is heading to Bali a day after me.

I was so happy to check out my dump the next morning to catch my fly to KL (the second time) and onward to Bali.