Last stop Jakarta, Indonesia.....

Following 5 days exploring KL’s shopping precincts we made our way back to Indonesia, Jakarta. After spending 4 hours there way back in February (our first Asian destination), we expected our return to be just as interesting (in that crazy asian way the shocks the senses). But this time it wasn’t quite the same from the backseat of the car, we weren’t as shocked, awed and mystified by what we were seeing. In fact Jakarta seemed rather modern, clean (from litter not pollution) and well kept. The cars not as crazy, the motorbikes not as a plenty…and it felt safe.  We spent the day driving around Jakarta, visiting sites and eating. The whole time we tried to find that initial craziness we had seen. It just didn’t come back. Visiting a few other cites had dulled the senses….from the scariness/seediness/dodginess of Manila, the pollution of Bangkok, the poverty of Laos, and the tragedy that was bestowed upon Cambodia and the rubbish of Vietnam - Jakarta had become a safe city, full of friendly people, cheap delicious food and plenty of Kucing. In fact once we landed at Dad’s place which he lent to us while he stayed at his sisters, it became quite apparent we were unlikely to leave. 

 The Jakata nightscape from the top of our apartment

The famous traffic of Jakarta

On the way to the public pool

A monkey in pants, with a dolls head from a mask performing on the side of the road

One of the many Baijah's of Jakarta

 With a 2 malls, a swimming pool and home made cheap food around the corner we quickly became locals to the Ojek drivers (motorbike taxi‘s), the Warung ladies (home cooked food), and the Carrefour staff (a type of Safeway/Big W that sold food and anything else you might need including live Hamsters).  The mall also dispensed high quality DVD’s a $86 each which was a recipe for 3 weeks of laziness, so lazy in fact we cancelled our trips to Jogja, Solo and Mount Bromo (we couldn’t get accommodation there anyway due to all the Europeans being on summer holidays and booking out all the guesthouses).

One of Sukarno's legacy monuments, gold and huge

In the Park surrounding the Monash monument

Dad, Amir and Dave

We did get off out bums to do a day trip to Bogor and walked through the botanical gardens, which is the home to many stray friendly Kucing and over 4000 different tropical plants. It was set up by the Dutch and still remains in good shape. One of the President’s weekend palaces lies on the cusp of the gardens, surrounded by lush grass and what seemed like a million Bambi deer. Needless to say they were super cute and from what we can tell have not been the subject to cull since the 60’s, when Dad could still remember them from.

The president's palace by Bogor Botanical gardens

His Bambi Deer

Paparazzi shots in the park

 One of the many Kucing

On our last night we boarded a train at Gambir station, that ended up being 2 hours late and took 3 hours longer than scheduled (13 hours in total), to Surabaya - our final destination. Kindly Dad paid for our  tickets in Eksekutif class, so it meant plenty of leg room, blankets, pillows, a/c and food - overall super comfy. We flew out the next day after a night in the hot industrial town with locals laughing at the tall while ‘Booleh’ -  “Hello Mister..ha ha ha ha ha ha”, to our last leg in KL Malaysia.

Kucing (said KUUCHING) - Cat city, the city of cats, where cats rule and cats are the best

We always knew Kucing translates to Cat in malay/indo but I couldn’t really believe the town had anything to do with cats, that would be absurd right? Wrong! As we arrive we saw there were cat monuments everywhere, as we walked down the street each manhole in the footpath had the Cat council symbol on it, cats in the street, an adorable cat living at our guesthouse and cat souvenirs.

A Kucing Roundabout, complete with cats

Another Kucing roundabout, Macca's wasn't going to miss this photo opportunity

A little cat monument

So I of course loved Kucing at first sight. We spent five days on holiday here, doing nothing but playing monopoly, watching cable, playing with 8 month Kimino the Tuxedo Kitty, walking around town and eating yummy food. 'Beds' guesthouse was like a home away from home, Dave and I could have stayed there for 6 months happily. I would canceled the rest of our trip to live in Kucing, but we had to move on after 5 days to KL before Java, which we did on July 9th my 28th birthday. And there is nothing better than spending your birthday in an Air Asia check-in line when the systems are down with Jet Star flashbacks a plenty. But we made it to KL for coffee, cake and a movie (Dave was very very nice to sit through Sex and they City 2 with me), in the end a lovely night.

 Beds Guesthouse, our home away from home

Dave writing home about it...

Kimino the resident kitty

Mulu National Park - not your average man vs. wild experience

We arrived back in lovely Kota Kinabalu, took a transit flight to Miri, stayed a night at the delightful Dellenia guesthouse, then flew out again the next morning to Mulu National Park. We were looking forward to a lovely relaxing stay, unfortunately it didn’t start well as all out bookings at the park had been removed from their little book of bookings.  This is a little scary as you can only fly in and out of the park, so if you have no accommodation you’re stuffed. After some discussion they were able to just give us another room, which was strange as it took me 3 weeks of emailing and checking to get the room we had originally booked.

The park has been awarded World Heritage status, so we knew it would be a beautiful place to explore. On the first day we took a tour with about 30 other people of two caves and a little village market. You could hear Dave’s inner voice of whinge as we walked through the cave unable to hear our guide, behind the most touristy of tourists. This was not the Bear Grylls experience he was hoping for. We got home after lunch relaxed and little, then headed out to the tree top tower which is 50 meters high and designed for spying on the wildlife of the canopy. After an hour we decided to descend as we had seen a total of 1 bird and 23 butterflies.  That evening we were booked in for a night walk, only 7 tourists this time - much better. The night walk was really fun as we saw much more than we did in the time we spent in the observation tower. Strangely the rain forest is rather devoid of animals. But we did get to see huge stick insects, a green tree fog, a green tree snake, Picher plants, massive spiders (even by Australian standards), giant snails, freaky snails, gecko’s, a bird asleep with he head tucked into his own feather doona and lizards. 

A lady selling used nose flutes at the village market..

A kid in the village

A pterodactyl butterfly near the entrance to Clearwater cave

The entrance to Clearwater cave

On our way to the tree top lookout

The next day we got up early to do the canopy walk, which is a 900 meter loop of suspended planks that you walk across 2 at a time. It’s quite a strange experience being up in the canopy but very beautiful. Once again we didn’t see any slow Loris’, Monkeys or Hornbills just pterodactyl sized butterflies. On the second last plank a whip snake was hiding in a tree, he was skinny with a diamond shaped head and rather uninterested in us even when Dave was swearing at him because he couldn’t get the camera to focus on his head. The annoying gross publicly affectionate hippy couple in our group I’m sure disapproved.

Dave heading across

The canopy walk was made by locals and does not harm the trees it's suspended to

Mr Whip snake

In the arvo we walked to the waterfall along a muddy track while being attacked by biting insects (more wounds to add to my coral burn and sand fly stings). The waterfall was very picturesque, the water was the coldest (and most refreshing) we’ve felt in Asia with Dave even struggling to plunge in.  The fish were abundant and too curious/friendly/dodgy for my liking so my shoes stayed on. 

Dave swimming at the waterfall

A picture straight out of a Sounds of the Rainforest CD

One our third and last day we did and easy 10km walk to Deer and Lang's Caves. These were indeed the reason why Mulu is world heritage, they were spectacular. Langs was very pretty, Deer Cave was something out of movie, it's where Batman should live. It houses 2 million teeny bats that are tiny and very very cute up close. Unfortunately the 2 million bats also poo a lot and it was a bit stinky walking past the layers of Guano. After our tour through the caves, we sat at the bat observation area as the bats leave each day between 5 and 6 if it hasn’t been raining. They hadn’t left the cave the last 3 nights but we were really lucky to see them start to stream out. They come out in 'worms', perhaps a few hundred bats at a time. This process must go on for about an hour. Our necks got sore and our SD card ran out of room so we walked back before the last bat exited the cave.

Formations inside Lang's cave

More formations inside Lang's

The entrance to the Bat (Deer) cave

Inside Deer cave, try to use the leeeetle people in the picture to gain perspective

Looking out from within Deer cave, Guano glistening

Mr Benjamin Franklin or Winston Churchill or Sean Penn from inside Deer Cave

A 'worm' of bats leaving Deer Cave

The Bats up close..

Leaving Mulu via another ATR-72

The next day we flew back to Miri, stayed the night at Dellenia again before heading off the next morning for Kuching.

Philippines….Manila and Coran

Arrived at Clark Airport, which is Manila’s version of Avalon. So it’s about 3 hours from the centre of Manila - the advantages of flying a low cost carrier are questionable in every country. Surprisingly Manila’s sprawl was visible about ½ an hour into our trip and went on for Km’s. It put’s Melbourne’s sprawl to shame, it was truly an urban concrete jungle to be reckoned with, a mega city like Jakarta. As we neared our destination we also spotted a mega mall that went for at least 8 Km’s and makes Chadstone look like forest hill chase. The huge gap between poor and rich is so apparent in Manila that it's shocking to see with a near non-existent middle class. If the poverty gap doesn’t shock you, Manila serves up some more surprises, including what looks like a record number of KFC’s, McDonalds, JollieBee’s and Pizza Hut’s. This Americans sure left behind a  fast food nation legacy. If you’re still not shocked the security guard at quaint little restaurant with a gun will. Or perhaps the guard at the ATM and Petrol Station with a pump action shot gun in his hand while he opens the door for you will. The frequent security checks of car boots and gloves boxes,  the doors always locked in your car policy or a frisking before a movie might. We haven’t even started to mention the sex trade, but we’ll get to that.

So we checked into a dirty stinky hostel that we pre-booked. Big mistake, thanks again Lonely Planet. But we decided to ride it out till morning as we were leaving the next day so we rolled out our own sheets, pillows and sleeping bags to protect us from the sliver of dirty foam mattress and prayed for morning. Our destination the town of Coron on the island of Busuanga which is part of the chain of Palawan (love an archipelago). A place put on the world map for it's brilliant wreck diving.  We rolled out our own sheets, pillows and sleeping bags to protect us from the sliver of dirty foam mattress and prayed for morning.

The next day we arrived in Busuanga, via a Cebu Pacific Airlines ATR-72. A rather pleasant flight through mountains and clean air until we landed and pulled up on a short and bumpy runway. The airport was in a paddock surrounded by lush green hills and farmland. It was a lovely site, even if the plane seemed out of context. We spent the next 3 days relaxing by the seafront at SeaDive which was literally "on" the water. Dave did 5 wreck dives and a thermal lake over 2 days and I joined him for the last 3. The ships which included supply and cargo as well as a war ship were part of a Japanese convoy during  WWII and were sunk by a flock of American fighter planes. They were amazing if not somewhat claustrophobic to dive in. We were  also lucky to see lots of beautiful Nemo‘s, a yellow spotted boxfish (teeeeeeeeeeeny and very cute) along with the normal lion and reef fish.

The Manila sprawl, from the ATR on our way to Coran

An island off Coran...an example of the beauty the Philippine archipelago

Our sole plane at Coran airstrip

A beautiful sunset at dinner from SeaDive

Yet another sunset

And another evening's sunset

I really miss work...this pic is for all you sucker's in your office chair

The entrance to Barracuda Lake, one of Dave's dive sites

On our day off we hired a moto and rode to a village that we were told we could hire a kayak from. We arrived, drove around a bit and then found ourselves in somebody’s back yard. The man who owned the yard was very nice and helped us find a boat we could hire. On offer was a tiny wooden canoe that was so narrow our bum's didn’t fit in it so we sat on the bamboo crossbars. With our one paddle we made our way to the shallow reef of the 7 islands. But before we could snorkel we had to also make our way across a drop off of deep water to a pontoon where we would pay for an entrance ticket. As we made our way towards the pontoon the canoe suddenly started to take on water, but we couldn’t scoop it out… so Dave jumped out, I jumped out and before we knew it, there we were floating with a dry bag, thongs, hats, other miscellaneous items, a missing paddle and a canoe full of water and submerged. It was pretty deep and I freaked out a little not knowing which items to save and what we were going to do. Luckily the man from the pontoon came over in his identical canoe, tied us to the back and took us to his floating platform. This man had no teeth, was most likely 80 and was still able to pull our boat up, fix it with fishing line, as well as haul me up onto the pontoon too. Then he took us back to shallow water. He was very nice and I am so glad he was there to save us!! Thank you Bleeding Gum's Murphy!

The 7 islands, with the Pontoon in the distance

Dave and Bleeding Gums fixing our 'canoe'

Me recovering on the pontoon from the boating accident...

After we recovered we snorkeled with Nemo's and other beautiful fish

The Village we borrowed the Canoe from..

We headed back to Manila for 2 days of exploring…a plane ride and taxi journey to our new residence called Sohotel. We weren’t sure what to expect, but after that last hostel we didn’t care. We arrived at a rather strange looking motel, like a bit blue factory. As we alighted the Taxi there were heaps of staff who were very friendly and helpful. We sat in a waiting room that looked like a bus. Then we were taken to a room which included a big comfy bed, clean large bathroom, desk, room service, a/c, wireless, phone and cable TV. Bargain!! The only rather entertaining feature was the place doesn't hide that it will cater to those who wish to engage with Customer Care Ladies. For example you can hire a room for 3, 6, 12 or 24 hours. You get toothpaste, toothbrushes, shampoo, soap and a condom on arrival. There is a small little menu of sex toys you can order through room service, your room has it‘s own foyer with and extra door so staff can‘t see in the room when they deliver stuff and there is a window, but it‘s the size of the TV and has it‘s own door to block out the light. But apart from that we saw and heard nothing of these ladies and their patrons while staying there. 

The waterfront off the bay of Manila

Malate Church, on Church day

'In Need of a Customer Care Assistant?' Well they were right next door to where we were staying, convenient much?

Let's not forget the special items you can order through room service. For those curious souls 'click to enlarge'.

The next two days we spent locked up in our room or walking the streets in search of malls and supermarkets. These places offer excellent AC and security, everyone is frisked on entry. We wandered shops, saw the delightful 3D Toy Story 3 and had a coffee at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. Then walked home in search of Jeepney’s which are the chicken bus (public transport) of the Philippines. These fully aluminum stretched jeep’s are blinged, pimped out and filled us with envy knowing we only get Hitachi trains to ride at home.

A  classic Jeepney! (see the blue Sohotel in the background)

More Jeepney's

Some local ink, on a 45 year old man.

On our last day we took the 3 hours bus ride back to Manila…to then be stung with a 600peso pp ($15) Terminal Fee, which we didn’t account for. Not to worry, we’d use the ATM’s at the airport, tried it and they didn’t accept international cards. We pleaded with the manager for help. He said twice someone would drive Dave to the local ATM, but it didn’t happen. As likelihood of missing out flight and staying longer in the Philippines was becoming more and more a reality, I stressed out and Dave cracked the shits at the ridiculousness of the situation. Surely there should be international ATM’s at an International airport that stings you a fee to use their terminal? Berwildered at what we could do, we tried to use the duty free shop to no avail, we seemed doomed. Till one of the staff I was talking to about our ordeal whipped out his wallet and paid the fee for us. Just like that. It was a blessing, miracle and wonderful. You can’t deny the Philippines people are a lovely bunch.