This and That

Our flight to Darwin landed at 3:30AM and we went straight to Erin’s friend Karen’s house and slept until the oppressive heat/humidity woke us up.  We grabbed some breakfast at a local market and bought some provisions from Coles.  After lounging around the house some more, we headed over to the Darwin museum to learn more about animals in the area and the destruction of the city in 1974 by hurricane Tracy.  I believe Tracy is the smallest Pacific cyclone on record, but she packed a punch when she hit Darwin.  Basically, the entire city was leveled and apparently there were pieces of wood and metal sheeting flying everywhere.  Amazingly, less than a 100 of the 40,000 people living at Darwin at the time died, but it took many years to rebuild the city.  Sidenote:  if you want to see something pretty incredible, check out the Wikipedia article on Supertyphoon Tip and look at the graphic showing his size relative to the Continental US and relative to Tracy (yes, I often read about historical cyclones when I’m bored).  After checking out a few more exhibits, it was time to head to the airport to pick up Karen, her husband Chris, and their baby Jarryd.  They had been in Sydney for a wedding, and were nice enough to let us invade their house while they were away and once they got back.

Karen et al. took us to dinner at the local sailing club which seemed liked the equivalent of a country club in the US.  The club was right on the water and it provided a great view of the sunset.  Erin got some great shots with her camera, and we discovered that it can detect sunsets and automagically switch into sunset mode.  Would’ve been nice to know that at Taneh Lot!

Our flight back to Darwin did not leave until 10:30pm, so we tried to pack in as much as we could during the day.  We started off with a ‘freecyling’ tour that started at Mt. Batur (an active volcano) and worked its way down to Ubud.  The course was 98% downhill, and so the only really taxing part of the journey was getting a hand cramp from the constant braking.  Despite the lack of exercise, the ride was a great way to see the countryside of Bali, and there were multiple stops where our guide showed us plants, temples, and a typical Balinese household.

During the tour, Erin mentioned to our guide that we were interested in sampling some weasel (or civet) coffee.  This is coffee that has passed through some sort of rodent and the enzymes in the animal’s digestive tract mellow out the flavor of the coffee.  At the conclusion of the tour, our guide said that he could take us to try some, and he got the driver to take us to a nearby coffee shop.  Unfortunately, the store did not sell the civet coffee, but they told us where we could find it.  Our guide told us it was a 30 minute drive, and the driver agreed to take us there for 40,000 Rupiah (~ $4).  We agreed, and we were off.  It took longer than half an hour to get to the coffee/herb farm despite the driver’s Ace Ventura-like driving.  Thankfully, they did have civet coffee along with some other interesting teas and coffee blends.  Civet coffee is known as the most expensive cup of coffee in the world, and we had to pay 100,000 Rupiah (~$10) each to sample it.  It was a good cup of coffee though I’m not sure it’s worth all the hoopla and fuss.  We bought a small bag to try at home, so I’ll get a chance to try it again with a cleaner palate and without a stomach that is churning from tearing around the back roads of Ubud.

After the weasel-poo adventure, we returned to the hotel where we had booked a driver to take us to see the sunset at Taneh Lot – a famous seaside temple.  This driver went at a much statelier pace which my stomach greatly appreciated.    Due to all the rush hour traffic, it took quite a while to get to Taneh Lot, but we managed to make it well before sunset.  We snapped pictures from various vantage points, enjoyed some corn on the cob and then hightailed it out of there before the crowds swamped the parking lot.  I got frustrated with how my camera was washing out the colors of the sunset in all of the auto modes, so I finally bit the bullet and tried to shoot in full manual.  I got some decent shots, but it was a lot of trial and error.  Our driver then took us to the airport, where a valet from our hotel guided us through the multi-stage departure procedure which included approximately 10 security checks.

Interesting sidenote: the duty free shop in Bali had 1.125L (the per person liquor limit for the US) of Black Label for $38.  This is the cheapest I’ve seen it anywhere in a while.

We started the day off with a tour of some nearby rice paddies.  This tour was more technically detailed than the previous day’s and our guide mentioned that the rice being used is genetically modified (GM) and it only takes 3 months from planting to harvest.  The ‘traditional’ rice takes 4+ months before it can be harvested.  Later on (I don’t remember when exactly), we learned that the GM rice is a hybrid of Balinese rice and a strain from the Philippines.  We had to sign a waiver before we started the tour which I assumed was typical CYA on the part of the resort, but there were some fairly narrow walkways along the paddies where it would be easy to slip and break/sprain an ankle.

After the paddy tour, we enjoyed some breakfast and then headed out to the Monkey Forest.  It’s exactly what the name suggests – a forest full of macaques (there are some temples in the forest as well, but they’re clearly playing second fiddle to the monkeys).  We took the hotel shuttle down to central Ubud and then walked to the forest.  On the way down, we talked to an Australian woman who said that she did not want to go to the forest because she heard that the dogs on Bali have rabies, and so the monkeys might too.  We met her again later, and, overall, she ended up being quite the Debbie Downer…pwa pwa.  The signs near the entrance of the forest said to make sure that you don’t have any food in your pockets or packs because the monkeys will smell it and harass you for it.  We did not have anything edible on us and the monkeys left us completely alone.  Other tourists were not so lucky and had macaques clambering all over them, but I believe they all purchased bananas to feed the monkeys, so they got what they paid for.

The next morning we were able to do a tour of the village and get a feel for Balinese life.  Temples and daily offerings were everywhere and it gave us an appreciation for how important religion is in Bali.  Our guide also explained the basics of rice cultivation and the politics of irrigation.  After the tour, Erin and I tried out our haggling skills with a local wood carver (or caver, if you believe his business card).  We didn’t get him to drop the 30% that our guide book recommended, but we did get him to come down a bit.

We got a ride to our hotel in Ubud, and the length of trip made us happy that we stayed in Batuan the previous night instead of trying to get to Ubud in one shot.  This hotel had been recommended by Agung’s (our wedding photographer) brother, and it did not disappoint. Everything was beautiful and well put together, and you could tell that a lot of thought had gone into the design of the resort.  The service was also top-notch with every interaction with the front desk resulting in rapid and accurate resolution to whatever we needed.

After checking in and enjoying some complimentary wine and chocolates, we decided to take a walk through Ubud and grab some dinner at a nearby eatery named Gill’s.  We ate at a rather early hour so we were the only ones in the restaurant.  There were various reviews on the wall raving about the ribs, so I tried them and they were, indeed, the best I’ve had in some time.  After dinner we made our way down to some more market areas where Erin did some more haggling and scored some Xmas gifts.  We continued our walk until we got to the Ubud Palace which was not as palace as we had expected, and then headed back to our hotel.

We flew from Cairns to Darwin and then on to Bali after a long 4-5 hour stopover.  Again, there were some weird terminal issues with our domestic flight to Darwin leaving out of the International Terminal.  My itinerary also claimed that our flight from Darwin to Bali was leaving out of the Domestic Terminal.  This ended up being partly true as Darwin only has one terminal.

By the time we finally touched down in Bali, it was around 10:30PM.  Our hotel was not too far from the airport, but traffic in Bali moves slowly because of the density of vehicles on their roads.  The hotel we stayed at the first night was one that I had randomly found on Google Maps.  I wanted something that was near Ubud (where we would be spending the bulk of our time), but not too expensive since we would only be spending one night there.  For a random Google find, it ended up being a great place right in the heart of a real Balinese village.

We (meaning Ryan) finally got this to work!  More to come…

North of Cairns, there are a number of attractions including the Daintree Rain Forest, Cape Tribulation and Port Douglas.  In order to check these out, we did an all day tour that mostly consisted of driving from site to site with a little bit of walking at each attraction.  Apparently the Daintree Rain Forest is the oldest continuous rain forest in world and despite its small size, it is home to much of Australia’s biodiversity.  We walked through a part of the rain forest while our guide pointed out various interesting insects and plants.

We had lunch at Cape Tribulation which was given its name by Captain Cook after he ran into a coral reef in the area.  It is quite scenic, but unfortunately we could not wade in the water due to the risk of marine stingers (jellyfish).

Port Douglas is a small coastal town that sounds like it is the Beverly Hills of Australia.  Lots of famous/rich people are spotted frequenting ritzy boutiques and restaurants.  The tour didn’t do much here – we just drove through the main drag while our guide told us all the famous people who have supposedly been spotted there.

We arose early to get to the best snorkeling spots before they became overrun, and our initiative paid off.  We were able to see all kinds of fish, clams and coral formations.  We wanted to check out the reef a little further away from the island, so we took a boat to deeper waters.  This ended up being a great  idea and we saw all kinds of additional sea life including a giant clam, a grouper (or ‘groper’ as some Aussies pronounce it) and a string ray.  All too soon the boat called us back for the return trip to the island.  I was pretty well spent at this point, and a little queasy from ingesting too much salt water (happens every time), so I hit the showers while Urn tried to find some sea turtles.  After Urn showered up, we had some lunch and caught the boat back to Cairns.