Sunday 30 March 2014

Floatin' down the green river, catch yourself a little chicken fried rice dinner.... (What song is that??;)

After Ubud we ventured off of Bali Island and onto Java Island. .. Destination: Pangandarnan. (You already read about our travel day in our "backpackers rant" ) anyways we spent our last 5 days of Indonesia in quiet, authentic, Pangandarnan.





We were encouraged to see this small village after our friends Amanda and Lyndon checked it out in September. They loved it, so we just had to see what all the hype was about. (Shyla and Tanner also enjoyed it and Travel company "free and Easy" spends majority of their time in this location. So what is so special about it?...

Well, for starters it is a sleepy beach town where locals come to spend their holidays and foreigners come to escape the travel beaten path. The waves are perfect for beginner surfers, and the restaurants serve delicious local foods for cheap prices. It is easy to become comfortable in this small town, as you come across the same people hanging out in the same spots on the daily. Surrounding the town are rice fields, villages,and scenic "green canyon". The rice fields and villages are about as real as
Indonesian life gets.







We found ourselves staying in a cute "home stay" with a clean spacious room, our very own balcony, free pancake breakfast, and complimentary tea all day long. All this for $12/night.
The weather surprised us.. Intense heat and humidity, followed by thunderstorms. We made sure to carry our rain jackets with us while we walked around the town, taking in the national park, the port area, and the restaurants. We rented a bike to see the surrounding area, as well as spent a morning surfing.








Our real highlights were our two days spent on "tours".
We went body rafting in the green canyon river! Yes, you read correctly... BODY rafting. Hard to explain,.but I'll try..5 German friends, 2 of us and three guides. We drove an hour "inland" to pick up our gear.. Helmet, life jacket, shin guards and shoes to protect us from the jagged rocks in the river. Then we 4x4d through the coconut jungle and finally jumped into the green river.









We peacefully floated down the river through the jungle and gorgeous side banks. Then we would climb over the rocks that formed a rapid, and often let the fast water from the rapid take us along the river while keeping our feet cautiously ahead of us, so that we could kick away from shallow rocks. We would climb up the side bank and Jump off heights 4-6 feet high.













When we weren't watching ahead for looming rocks, we were looking up, enjoying the gorgeous scenery. It was actually more of an adventure than I had thought. Adrenaline was pumpin as we went over the rapids, but with that being said, we all felt safe and would recommend the experience to other adventure seekers.
I can now say I've touched a rainbow!! (In Australia we saw both ends of a rainbow which was really pretty. But here we actually touched it and walked through it. ..


The next morning we spent surfing, And the afternoon, exploring the national park.
Surfing was fun.. but as beginners, we spent most of the time being bashed by waves. I was successful and stood up 4 times!! ..Ashton somehow throughout the day, broke off a fin from the surfboard. Apparently it's the fault of the renter when issues arise with the surfboard, as the guy located us at our homestay and asked us to pay for the cost of a replacement fin. (Again, this is just bad luck that the tiny fin on the bottom of the board fell off while Ashton was using the board)..so Ashton said, we"ll go look for it before we pay. We never found it and spent the next day looking for buddy to pay him the$7 .. However he wasn't around so we gave up and went about our day. Well.... He found us at 6 am the next day, 2 minutes before we were leaving Pangandaran and again asked us to cover the cost oft he missing fin. We gave in,at and Ashton gave him money.


Our second big highlight was touring the green valley via motorbike. Just the two of us followed our guide on our own scooter. We rode through rice fields and watched the rice farmers at work.

We stopped to watch "pigeon racing" practice!! Lol.. In a couple days, locals from all over pay a small fee to be part of the compeitition. Winner receives a large lump sum of money. A man takes his male and female pigeons to the competition. The male is put in a cage on the back of a scooter, and driven 100 yards by another local Indonesian on his scooter. The Indonesian then uses his cell phone to call the owner of the male pigeon to tell him he is releasing the pigeon. The owner (100 yards away, and standing in the home box), then starts waving/flapping the female into the air and hollers out "here's your wife, come and get her" in Indonesian of course. The male/husband pigeon is supposed to race/fly back to his wife. He is supposed to fly correctly through the box in order to complete the race. So the first male pigeon to successfully fly through the box to me his wife is the
winner.




Sounds complicated, but really quite amazing to watch. How the owners train the pigeons is interesting. Quite a big competition and lots of fun for the Indo guys.

Back to off roading we go, through the dirt, villages, amoung the way of life in the jungle. The cute kids somehow see us a mile away and always jump up and down and scream "hello" to us. Even the adults send us a friendly wave. Waving back at the cuties was one of my favourite parts of the day. Made us feel like celebrities!, ha ha..


We arrived AT the valley and spent the afternoon walking through the jungle, learning about plants and animals. The three of us swam/walked a long the river with it being so shallow. We swam under a waterfall into a cave, and pretended to be Tanzan and Jane on the jungle swing. Played around.







Overall, a very enjoyable and gorgeous tour.
Excellent way to end our stay in Pangandaran.

Unfortunately the next day was a torturously long train ride. We ended up getting ripped off and paying way more for an economic train pass, which means we were literally squished in with the locals in the most uncomfortable seats. A supposedly 8 hour train ride with nice scenery turned into a 13 hour train ride !!! Turns our a train ahead of us broke down and it took 5 hours to fix, so we sat still for an additional 5 hours. Omg.

So after that hellish ride, we opted to stay in the Best Western in Jakarta, (the capital of Indo, also where we fly out of)..thanks to Kelly and Dan for their gift card to Best Westerns nation wide. The card was gold and we definAtly needed a clean, nice place to rest up and recharge.



We are currently awaiting our plane to Sri Lanka!!


Wednesday 26 March 2014

A Backpacker Rant

We are so glad you are enjoying our blogs. Obviously we wish we could bring each of you along on our journey,.. But because that isn't possible, we hope you can feel like you're part of our adventures. We would like to believe that through our words and pictures you are learning about a new country-the people, the places, and the culture that makes up the countries we are In.

The photos on our blog are beautiful and it looks like we've been laying on the, beach, chillin by pools, and scootering  around, all the while, drinking bintangs. Haha
..well, yes, we do make sure to get our fill of cheap beer.. But travelling is much more than that. Here are examples of what we don't include in our blog, or what we have deprived you of knowing..

--travel days are long, sweaty, stinky, dirty, crowded, frustrating..
The other day it took us 12 hours to reach our destination.. Ashton booked us a flight for 10:30 am, well a couple days prior he received an email in Indonesian about the flight. We had three Indonesians try to translate. They told us : " flight delayed to 6:00am"... Umm I think they mean, our flight was "changed/bumped up" to 6 am. Lol.. So ya good thing he checked his email.. So luckily we got on the right plane at 6 am, then arrived in a city and took a taxi to the train station, which was LOUD! Announcements overtop of announcements and whistles and trains and people trying to sell things. Ah. Ashton stuck his mouth through the hole at the ticket window and spoke broken English, showing his phone and map of where we wanted to go. Finally the lady on the other side smiled and nodded her head. (I think she was more laughing  at Ashton, cuz if she had moved forward an inch, she could have kissed him, ).. Again, it was very loud. But Ashton prevailed and got us good seats on the train. 4 hour ride.










After arriving, we met 3 German travellers who helped barder for cheap transport to the bus station. Upon arriving to the bus station, Indonesian bus workers were all shouting in our faces.." Cheap bus,..only bus to pangandaran,..". It was a little crowded bus that was full of people, ready to leave and was only 5,000 rupia (50 cents) per person. Beside these tiny, cheap buses were some bigger normal buses that had comfy seats, air conditioning etc. So we ask what about those big buses there? " No, no" .. " they don't go to pangandaran!" We were all hot, sweaty and had enough and the tiny bus was pretty much running us over trying to leave so we said,  Ok okay! And hopped onto the tiny, crowded, smoky bus and after leaving the bus terminal, the guy collected our fare. Well... He then charged us 50,000 Rupia per person. That's $5 per person which is not nearly what the locals were paying, and he originally told us 50 cents. Then a big, fast, comfortable air conditioned big bus whizzed by us. Icing on the cake. We were cheated. So Ashton and I sat quietly and shot eye daggers at the bus worker. only in Asia can you chain smoke cigarettes on a public bus with kids and elders maround and ash your cigarette wherever you want then just throw the butt on the floor lol the second
hand smoke was a nice touch to the smell that was already lingering in the bus. 



We arrived 2 hours later, and 11 hours since we left our hotel room. We followed the Germans to the hostel we too wanted to stay at. And guess what? It was Full. Ha.. The next accommodation was nice and that's where We are now. 

--travellers diarrhea. 
It sucks. It happens to all travellers, especially in south east Asia, where fried rice and fried noodles make up the traditional meals. Who knows how clean the kitchens are, how the food is prepared or where the ice came from, along with who knows what our stomach is trying to digest... So ya we spent 4/5 days with upset stomach and diarrhea. Gross, yes but it's Part of travelling. And when you "really" have to go, guaranteed the only toilet you will find is a squatter which we will explain in the next point. 

--squatters.
 Hm if I haven't showed you a picture already, I'll make sure to post one soon. A lot of public toilets 
consist of squatters.no toilet paper and a 2,000 service chArge. (20 cents) pretty sure they are just public toilets but people claim them and charge others to use them. We always carry our own toilet paper which is as precious as gold. There's never any, maybe a bum gun but we don't use them. You 
can't put the toilet paper in the squatter, there is a garbage you throw it into. A squatter is basically a hole in the ground with two foot spots on either side..after you use the squatter, you fill a bucket with water and pour it down the squatter to "flush".. Let's just say I have strong quads from squatting.



--bugs, insects, animals. 
I can get used to the ants, the stray dogs, cats, the geckos, bats, even the cockroaches ... But can never get used to the rats , frogs and bed bugs. Yuck!

--the garbage. 
Rubbish. Filth, whatever you prefer to call it. It's everywhere!! So sad!! This country is beautiful,and the people don't respect their land to keep it clean.They just throw their garbage all over the beaches, the ditch, the road, the water..so sad. If it's not there it's being burned. 

--bardering. Begging, harassing, selling. 
Every day, a hundred times a day we hear.. "Taxi?" Massage! Come look at my shop. Sarong? You can literally barter for almost everything here. Tour tickets, accomodation, scooter rentals, clothes, 
taxis, etc, we even got 20% off our lunch bill one day because we were looking at a menu and it was 
too expensive for us so we were on our way out to check out another place when the server came up to us on the way out and said ok I give you discount. So you always have to barter and walk away and they follow you saying ok " morning price" or "sunset price" but "only for you my friend, good for you and good luck for me."Argh

There you have it, some of the things we deal with on a daily basis in order to enjoy the nice beaches, cold bintang and the beautiful scenery, as you have viewed on "Our Backpacking Adventure" 

Love you long time , Chelsey and Ashton

Sunday 23 March 2014

Ubud, Bali

Good day! Thanks for tuning in.
Last blog we were in Lombok with Shyla and Tanner.

We had quite the day of travel going to ubud, bali.

We had called the boat company a day prior to confirm that we would be leaving Lombok at 10:30. They said yes, be at the port an hour and a half early. So we arranged a shuttle early in the morning, which dropped us off at the wrong location. The locals pointed us inthe right direction and we walked 5minutes with our bags. No big deal,but we were already sweaty. We arrived at a restaurant which had a picture of the boat, so we showed them our ticket and were encouraged to sit down and Order something. (Tourism trap) We were given menus and asked if we wanted breakfast. We just ate, so we declined and continued to sit at this restaurant. After half hour of us clearly not ordering, a random guy asked for our ticket. Right away he said "that boat not come today"..huh. He spoke with another restaurant guy in Indonesian, and soon they were both on their phones..
Another half hour passed and we were confused. After they got off the phone, they said, "come with
us to a different port." So we hopped on the back of their bikes and they took us to a bigger, busy port.

Finally someone explained that our incoming boat had engine troubles and wouldn't run that day. So the guys on the phone had arranged for us to catch a different boat/with different company which left from the main port. Thanks for arranging that's for us boys. but now the boat isn't coming until 1 pm,.. Soo more waiting around.

This time we ordered food and drinks at a local hut. Ironically, we started talking to the only other
foreigner around. He was from California, and living/teaching English in Indonesia. He spoke fluent
Indonesian and was super nice. We listened as he spoke with the locals...soo strange seeing a. White guy speak with them. Haha.. He encouraged us to try a local fruit which was super unique so we did. And then just like that, someone told him his boat was leaving, so he was gone.




Our boat finally came at one. It was a fast boat, with 5, 250horsepower each engines. It was a rough ride and stopped twice from the engine quitting. Each time it stopped, all of the foreigners on the boat looked around and laughed... Typical...the boat drivers would run to the back, play around with the engine, and it would fire back up.




Anyways a hour later we were back on solid ground and had prearranged for a jeep to take us to ubud. Another, hot, dirty, stinky ride.
Ubud!! We made it! The minute foreigners are spotted with their back packs on, locals begin offering their place for us to stay at. (I mean their family owned accommodation/hotel/bungalows/home stay) they rattle off the features.. "Air con, pool, wifi, close, cheap cheap".

Anyways we were getting tired so we took a guy up On his offer.

We were pleasantly surprised and pleased with our new accommodation.beautiful architecture
surrounded the garden, temple and bungalows. It was very modern, clean, and spacious. Perfect.










Our first full day in Ubud we rented a scooter and zipped around, checking out a elephant temple. (Despite the name, there were no elephants around..) it is out of respect for the Hinduism culture to cover knees and shoulders when visiting a. Temple. So Ashton donned a pretty dress to cover his knees.





The temple was... A temple.. Very Nice. But without understanding the background of the temple, or culture, we figured one temple was enough to see. We found some cute old man (who looked like the palm reader in the movie eat pray love) and he invited us to pray with him. So we followed his lead and he sprinkled water on us and we heard the words,beautiful, happy, married, baby... We smiled and said thank you in Indonesian. Then he lifted up a rug to reveal money. He started pointing at the $5 rupia and held up two fingers.. $5 per person per blessing! 10 dollars goes a long ways here. That's a nights accommodation or a real good meal with a couple beers so we were resultant to five him anything... Wwhhaatt?? Ashton gave him one dollar and we hurriedly left. Great now we've been cursed because we didn't pay him.. For a blessing?. What the?.....
Money.. The root of all evil.

Needless to say, we will not be touring any more temples.

Then we biked to Tegalalang where we viewed a gorgeous area of rice paddies.
We enjoyed a nice lunch overlooking the rice field and hopped back on the bike to "get lost in the countryside", touring through villages, and rice paddies.












Really good day . Decided to get dolled up and have a "date night". I got all prettied up,applying makeup and a nice shirt... Then it started to pour... On goes our handy rain jackets.


We spent the evening watching a Balinese dance performance. It was really amazing. The music, the attire, the emotion, it was neat. We had a pamphlet outlining the story of each section of the dance. Some sort of love story...
The next day we checked out the monkey forest and the local market.














We enjoyed many delicious meals in Ubud, as it's a touristy place, known for its cultural and spiritual experiences. Lots of yoga goers, cool cafés and meditating.
I bed early as we had to wake up at 2am for our volcano hike.
We were told we would be picked up at 2:30, so imagine our surprise when the dog was barking and someone was tapping on our door at 2 am. "Climb volcano now".. We'll be right out.
We hopped in the car with a young couple from South Africa, who spoke fluent english and were really nice.
At our first stop we had a small breakfast of a tiny pancake and tea. It was really cold as we were climbing in altitude and it was 3 am!
Back in the vehicle and taken to the base off he volcano where we met our guides, gathered our
bigger breakfast and given flashlights.

And were off.. To trek the steep volcano in the dark. (There were only 4 to our group with an excellent guide, however there were many groups At their own pace, so it was neat to see a string of flashlights heading up the volcano together.
The trek became increasingly challenging. We stopped several times to catch our breath and allow our hearts to calm down. Hah a.. (The guide often had to lift and toss us over big rocks and steep spots. He was really strong, full of energy and loved to "make joke".

It took two hours to climb up to the crater. At 6:20, the sun rose!! It was beautiful!!
















Such accomplishment to make it to the top and enjoy the gorgeous view of the. Village below, the lakes and the clouds. We ate our big breakfast which was necessary energy for the way down.
Our guide showed us the crater, a little cave and tiny holes which steamed with heat.
There were also monkeys AT the top of the volcano. One jumped on my backpack and I let out a scream because I was so startled. Where did that monkey come from? Lol..
Anyways we walked around and continued to enjoy the view while laughing with our guide and South African couple.
When we told them we are married, the guide asked "M-B-A??" Then he laughed and finally told us what it meant. .. Let's see if you can figure it out? Something to do with marriage and babies.
The trek down was also harder than expected. Tough on our knees and shins, and we were careful not to roll our ankles.

In all, it was an amazing climb and a breathtaking sunrise. Time we got back to the base it was already starting to get hot out. Back in the car, smiles all around.
We stopped at a coffee plantation on the way home. We learned about the. Famous Lombok coffee made with the aid of cats.

(The plantation had a couple cats locked up, which they let out at night time. The cats eat particular coffee bean seeds right from the tree. Because the cat cannot digest the seed, it comes out with the cat poop. The people scoop up the poop, pick out the seeds and wash them thoroughly, boiling them and heating them over a fire. Then the bean covering is cracked open and the seed inside is used to make delicious, smooth coffee. Apparently this coffee is amazing and is sold for an expensive price to foreigners. Many people make the trek over to Lombok just for the coffee. Or so they tell us. It was
$5 per small cup.
We passed on this offer, even though the cat poop story made it sound so delicious! Yummy! Not .. Lol.. But we did sample various teas and normal coffee.



 Mount Batur. The volcano we hiked.

By this point we wanted a bed. Soo tired. Drove an hour back to our place and crawled into bed. Since We had so much coffee I wasn't able to sleep, so we sleepily walked around and ate lupper (lunch/supper) and watched amazing race while it poured out. We were told it rains often in ubud but not in other surrounding villages. Maybe from the elevation??

The rain continued into the next day where it was cloudy all day. Fine by us, since we were nowhere near a beach or pool. We found an internet shop and purchased online tourist visas for Sri Lanka. Spent $5 on a one hour massage. (Hey, we needed the massage after the mountain climb. Our glutes were feeling the burn!) and made a couple book trades.

The time flew in Ubud.

Thinking of you. Much love.. Chels and Ashton Zunti