Singapore

Singapore, our final stop. So before going on I would like to once again thank everyone who so kindly contributed to our honeymoon in the form of wedding gifts. Your kindness is really appreciated by us. We hope to see you soon and bore you with the photos that we didn't manage to put up on here (there are thousands of them, so be warned).

We arrived in Singapore on the morning of Saturday 18th August. This date was indeed fortuitous. You may already know that Trev, a man of many names, and one of the ushers at our wedding, lives in Singapore (here). He kindly offered us the sofa in the lounge of his flat to stay in while in Singapore, saving us a packet on accommodation. So why was the date fortuitous? It was Trev's 30th birthday. Taking time out from his busy schedule of having many happy returns, our gracious host spent the day showing us round Marina Bay Sands, a dead swank hotel/casino/shopping mall on reclaimed land. As you can see from the pics, it looks like a ship on top of three tall towers. We went up to the top and enjoyed the view (including lots of Panamax freighters out in the harbour in the distance, something that's fast becoming an obsession of mine (to Katie's chagrin)).

Later that evening we enjoyed a beer in the pool (yup, Trev's apartment complex has got a pool), and then we went out to celebrate. I shall draw a veil over the proceedings of the evening; suffice it to say that Trev was suitably refreshed by the end of it. Also, that the taxi driver on the way home told us to tell Barack Obama to keep an eye on China (this really happened, as far as I recall).

Apart from this revelry, we've generally pottered around Singapore for the last few days, taking in such low-level sights as Chinatown, Little India, Clarke Quay, and the Raffles Hotel (we didn't bother have a Singapore Sling in the Long Bar, but we did poke our heads around the door to confirm that it looks like a Canary Wharf Wetherspoons). As a result of this exhaustive survey, I can tell you of the three best things we found in Singapore.

The first thing is the food, which is probably the best of all the places we've been in terms of availability, variety, quality, and price. There are food courts and hawker centres everywhere and they've all got lots of different food options. And on top of all this, there are also several branches of Din Tai Fung here, meaning we could eat there twice more on our trip (we also ate there in Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur twice, meaning a total of five visits - even more than we've been to McDonald's (well, close, anyway)).

The second great thing about Singapore is the Night Safari, tickets for which were kindly bought for us as a wedding gift by Tim Peach and Sarah Bailey, whose wedding we're flying back for this weekend, in a sort of tit for tat arrangement (this is not true (well it's true we're off to their wedding on our return to the UK, but not that it was in return for Night Safari tickets)). It's a zoo, but at night! And you get to go round most of it on the tram, handy if you've spent much of the day walking around the hard-to-navigate retail jungle of Singapore (or "in hell" as I might put it). The best animals were the clouded leopards, the Indian gharials, the tarsiers, the binturongs (not to be confused with the Bintangs from Bali) and (according to Katie) the elephants and rhinos. That's right: elephants and rhinos. What's that you ask? Are they actually nocturnal? No, I don't believe they are, particularly. One might question, then, why they are in a night zoo (ditto for hippos, giraffes, bears, lions, and various other stuff). I suppose the word "crepuscular" could be bandied about and applied to some of them. Anyway it was nice to see such great beasts, and they were all on show and fairly close up.

The final brilliant thing about Singapore is Changi airport. Free internet (see? I'm writing this on it!), free cinema (admittedly showing cack films), any number of free TVs, free and rapid transport between terminals, loads of shops, free XBox 360 (on which I beat Katie at Kinect Sports Table Tennis and drew with her 5-5 at football), free PS3 terminals, and the chance to be a Changi Millionaire (we're waiting anxiously for the prize draw, since a million Singapore dollars is five hundred thousand quid, more or less, which will probably buy a couple of pints in Zurich). It's the best airport either of us has ever been to. We checked in to our flight 6 hours early to get a good amount of time to try everything.

Speaking of which, we'd better go and check in to our flight. It leaves soonish and we've got to find the gate. See you soon, when we're back in the UK. Thanks for reading! There'll probably be photos up here soonish, or on facebook. Or coming soon to an excruciating evening near you...

Gili: Gili Meno, Air, Trawangan (by the sea)

The Gili Islands (not Gilly) are three islands off the west coast of Lombok in Indonesia, here. They're well known as paradise islands, each with its own slightly different atmosphere. We stayed on Gili Meno, since it's the most laid back and relaxed of the three places, and we're coming to the end of our honeymoon now (sniff, sniff), so we fancied one last crack at desert island relaxation.

We had some success at this venture: Gili Meno is very relaxing. Aside, that is, from us having to duck and dive to avoid a couple we saw in the jungle at Bukit Lawang so as not to have the embarrassing "how are you? yes we're fine? what have you been up to?" conversation (why didn't we just have the conversation and be done with it? especially when it turned out that the couple in question were in fact (as predicted by Katie when we first saw them on the beach) staying in the bungalow next door? Meaning we had to sneak around several times when we saw them). In fact it was so relaxing that there's not really much to say about it. We saw some lovely sunsets. We did some pleasant snorkelling. We did some sunbathing and lots of reading.

We also visited the other Gilis: Trawangan and Air. Trawangan is the "party island", and the busiest of the three. We were there very briefly before heading off to Meno (on the way in) or Bali (on the way out). It's full of touts, hassle, and bad tattoos. It's probably great if you're looking for a party (maybe not during Ramadan, mind you (or Ramadhan as it's spelled here)). Gili Air we went to for a day trip. It's a bit more developed than Gili Meno but still pretty laid back. To ring the changes, while there we spent the day sunbathing and reading.

Sorry this has been a bit dull. We're off to Singapore soon, flying there with Air Asia. Who knows, something may go wrong and I might get to write another poem...

Counting Bintangs in Bali

We finally arrived in Denpasar airport, Bali, relieved to be out of Medan airport and the world of Batavia Air and massively excited about the coming days. Seeing people that we actually know and like very much! YAY! I might have got a little over excited at times, but wouldn't you have been if you were spending five days of sheer joy with the likes of 'Genius' La Roger, Tait, Trev McClure, Chie Kishimoto, Laura Steen and Thomas Robin. The perfect 'Balimooner' crew, I'm sure you'll agree.

Before we met up with all the lovely people mentioned above, Sam and I spent one night in Ubud. This is one of the places I believe that features in the probably rubbish (I haven't read it, so apologies if my predictions are out of turn) book, 'Eat, Pray, Love'. We were very lucky to be staying in one of the poshest resorts there - Ubud Green, a wedding present from my former boss. It was well plush. We had our own villa, with entrance hall, huge bedroom, outdoor jacuzzi, kitchen/dining room/lounge, a private plunge pool and sundeck with views of rice paddies and a butler on call if we needed anything. We were offered welcome drinks, welcome massages, afternoon tea and even a free taxi service into town. Pretty cushty. When you're staying in a place like this, the obvious thing to do is turn it into a spa. Well, that's what Sam wanted to do. He tried in vain to recreate a Japanese onsen experience, filling the jacuzzi with piping hot water and using the plunge pool to cool off afterwards. Unfortunately it didn't have quite the desired effect, since the hot water tank ran out before the jacuzzi was full.

Ubud itself is pretty and where you're supposed to go in Bali if you want to experience some true Balinese culture. We saw a bit of Balinese dancing and thought it was a bit boring and I did some shopping at the market, but that's about as cultural as it got for us.

Then it was time to meet everyone in Seminyak, the part of Bali where you go to party and party that we did. Accommodation this time was the pimping Villa Aisha, courtesy of the wonderful La, as a wedding gift. The place was incredible - a huge four bedroom villa with a massive pool and sundeck with loungers, which we made much use of. Many an hour was spent at the Villa Aisha, sunbathing by the pool, drinking lots of homemade, diabetes-inducing cocktails, offering alternative commentary on the Olympics, playing cards (La will always be the best president in my opinion), and worrying about how many Bintangs were left in the fridge.

Outside of our deluxe abode, we visited the beach and ate and drank at lots of swanky establishments in the area, including Potato Head, where we watched the sun set whilst we posed in the infinity pool with our cocktails (definitely felt like I was on the set of 90210). We also took a daytrip to the Waterbom Bali waterpark, where peer pressure saw me take a ride on an insane flume called 'Climax' - a vertical drop, 19m off the ground and I got caught in an eddy under a bridge on the 'Lazy River' with a jet of water continuously pelting my face, much to Sam and Trev's amusement.

All in all, our time in Bali was just fabulous. It was amazing to see our friends (a pleasant break from just each other) and a relief to not have to be choosing our accommodation for a few days!

Don't fly with Batavia Air (a poem; a warning; a true story)

Oh please gather round, for A Tale of the East,
A story from far Indonesia.
Not of silks, nor of spices, insurrections or crises,
but I hope that my tale will still please ya.
Our honeymoon travels, our troubles and trials,
I hope you don't find it a bore.

We booked in to fly from Sumatra to Bali,
the airline we chose was Batavia.
They say "trust us to fly", their domain is the sky,
we picked them, not Lion or Air Asia.
Medan to Jakarta, then on to Denpasar,
we booked both flights some months before.

****************************

Flight one was at ten - we got to the airport
quite early: a bit before eight.
"Our flight's not on the list - is there something we've missed?"
"Sorry sir that flight not operate,
nor flight to Denpasar - we book you replacements,
your new first flight will leave at four."

"And still on to Bali?" "Yes - not with Batavia,
our flight there don't go at that time.
But sir have no concern, for alternative firm
have agreed they will take you - it's fine.
Arrive at Jakarta, and pick up your baggage.
Your check-in will be just next door."

****************************

Thirty minutes past five, flight 1 started boarding
(it was late by an hour and a half).
The airport in Medan for eight-plus hours can
make one somewhat reluctant to laugh.
"Will we still be able to make our connection?"
"Yes sir you'll have one hour or more."

****************************

Leaving time for flight two was at twenty to nine;
flight one didn't arrive 'til half eight.
"We missed our departure - we're stuck in Jakarta.
It's Batavia's fault we were late."
"But sir why all such fuss? This missed flight not with us -
this isn't our problem no more."

"You sold tickets to flights that never existed.
You only replaced them once we insisted.
New flight one was disgracefully late and, as well,
our baggage turned up on the wrong carousel.
Check-in for flight two (which you said was not far)
was a different terminal, ten min by car.
Over and over again on this ride
by your staff we've been smirked at and laughed at and lied
to and now that we're stuck in Jakarta tonight,
though it's all thanks to you that we missed the last flight,
you will sit there and tell us the problem is ours?
Say you can't do a thing? That you don't have the powers?
Here's a better solution: this you can fix.
Send us free on your first flight tomorrow at six."
"Ok madam, for you that is what we will do.
Check-in here in the morning at four."

****************************

Arrivals, next morning, the sun not yet up,
a hundred and ten people wait,
and through bleary eyes they see - what a surprise! -
Batavia's staff are all late.
At four forty-five we are checked in at last.
Three hours later we're on Bali's shore.

****************************

A honeymoon journey from Hong Kong to Bali
will have its fair share of mishap.
Though the roads in Cambodia may irk, rile, and goad ya,
Batavia give you more crap.
So when flying in Asia, avoid please Batavia!
We'll certainly use them no more.

Jungle Fever in Bukit Lawang

Bukit Lawang is a small tourist town, right next to Gunung Leuser National Park, home to a whole number of monkeys, apes and other wildlife. We came here in the hope of spotting a wild or semi-wild Orangutan (there's a sanctuary here where rescued Orangutans are reintroduced back in the jungle) and we weren't disappointed.

We were informed that the best way to see as much wildlife as possible whilst in Bukit Lawang is to spend a night in the jungle, so we booked ourselves onto a two day jungle trek. The night before we embark on our jungle trekking, Sam could barely sleep due to his over-excitement. I too found it difficult to sleep, filled with anxious thoughts about our upcoming adventure.

We were in a group of six trekkers, with two official park guides accompanying us. As soon as we met the group, it was clear that Sam and I were completely unprepared for what was ahead. Everyone was kitted out in trekking gear - appropriate walking boots and convertible, light-weight walking trousers. Sam and I on the other hand were sporting white converse and shorts... Fifteen minutes into the trekking I was struggling to not slip over as we were scrambling up and over the wet jungle floor, so much so that the guide offered to swap shoes with me. Great news for me, as I got to wear his rubber jungle shoes that had football-like studded soles for gripping more easily. 

Even with my special jungle shoes on, the trekking was pretty hard going. Seven hours of crawling up and down hills trying not to trip over tree roots or skid down sheer drops, with sweat literally dripping from every pore and the excruitating pain it left my muscles in was all worth it. We got to see so many incredible sights, including about ten or so Orangutans, a Thomas Leaf Monkey, a Black Gibbon and plenty of Macaques. All of the animals that we saw seemed to be pretty fearless and came really close to us, just going to show that they must be well accustomed to tourists.

The overnight stay in the jungle wasn't as bad as I had feared either. I didn't wake up in the middle of the night with a spider crawling across my face, in fact, we didn't encounter that many creepy crawlies at all. The only thing that made it difficult to sleep was the uneven ground we were sleeping on. We were also treated to some first class Indonesian evening entertainment from the guides, who taught us how to play a mutitude of seemingly hilarious games with cups (Bali crew, you're in for a right treat). In case you were wondering about the food, this was also top notch - loads of freshly cooked Indonesian food and a fruit-filled breakfast. Sam was introduced to Passion Fruit for the first time (how could this be possible?!) and loved it so much that he ate four whole ones for breakfast, along with a mandarin, a couple of bananas and about ten pieces of watermelon.

As we were so exhausted from our previous day's trek, we were saved from too much walking the next day and instead visited a waterfall not far from the campsite and then floated back along the river to our hotel on huge rubber inner tubes.

Such an incredible experience, although, it's been four days since our trek and my legs are still really stiff. I Katie Tazzyman, vow to get fit, and you can hold me to it.

The hunt for Danau Toba

Excuse the pun in the title, please. It's been a while since I wrote here and I needed to get it out of my system.

Danau means Lake in Bahasa Indonesia (the Indonesian language), so (as you may have already worked out if you are super brainy) this post is about our visit to a lake called Lake Toba. This is in North Sumatra, Indonesia. Which means - that's right! - we've left Malaysia and flown across the Strait of Malacca, to land on Sumatra, the world's sixth largest island, and the largest island completely in Indonesia (Borneo and New Guinea, though larger, are not entirely Indonesian (as in the former case you already know because we've been to Malaysian Borneo on this trip)). We landed in Medan, the largest city in Sumatra, and the capital of the state of North Sumatra (confusingly not the northernmost state in Sumatra, which is Aceh). Medan is a bit of a hole, but we stayed in the delightful Swiss-Belinn, allowing us to watch TV in our hotel room rather than go outside where there's bugger all to see (meaning we've seen some of the Olympics, but I digress).

Fortunately there's more to North Sumatra than Medan (hence us coming here). Which is where Lake Toba comes in. The largest lake in Indonesia, it is also the largest volcanic lake in the world (I'm all geographical facts today, it would seem). It's 100km long and 30km wide, and was formed some 70,000 years ago by a MASSIVE volcanic explosion (the largest known explosive eruption anywhere on Earth in the last 25 million years, it caused global temperatures to plummet by between 3 and 15 degrees C and may have caused a fair few extinction events and depleted the world population of humans at that time by such an extent that the genetic effects of the resulting bottleneck are still noticeable today (according to some sources, anyway)). It's also really beautiful (which is why we were there).

We stayed on Pulau Samosir, an island in the middle of the lake (actually it's not really an island as it's connected to the mainland by a narrow isthmus but we had to get a ferry there so it's an island in my book), in a town confusingly named Tuktuk. There we spent several days relaxing, sunbathing (mainly Katie), diving and jumping into the lake (mainly me) and enjoying the local food (both of us) while being slightly incredulous at the sheer amount of time it takes to get served dinner in Indonesia (around 50 minutes per meal even in a completely empty restaurant, apparently regardless of the type of restaurant (though we've not yet tried McDonald's)).

One thing we did do that was more interesting than swimming in the resort swimming pool or reading was hire out a scooter for a day trip buzzing around the island. This was great fun, with Katie and I taking it in turns driving while the other rode on the back of the bike. The roads were largely devoid of traffic, the sun was out, the landscape was beautiful - it was wonderful. We spent the morning shooting around the coast of the island, then drove across the isthmus to the mainland and treated ourselves to a dip in the natural volcanic hot springs there (the only holdover from the area's enormously volcanic past). At this point the day was looking a decent contender for being one of the best days we'd had on our trip.

 A Batak house, with its distinctive curved roof (the Bataks are the people who live in this area of Sumatra)

 Katie puts her foot down

 Heated by volcanic activity

Mmmmmm

Then we decided to go a different way back to Tuktuk. Rather than going back around the island, we thought we'd go over the top - the guidebook said that there were spectacular views there, and our map showed the roads going across that way.

Thanks guidebook/map.

The road started out fine, and then deteriorated until it looked like this:

This was not easy to navigate on a scooter with two people weighing it down. As we climbed higher, however, things got worse. The road started looking like this:

The reason Katie is riding the bike in all these pictures is because her morale was too low to take snaps when I was riding it

In some places we had to have one person dismount because the bike would have scraped and bumped too much with two on it. At this point morale was low. The locals we passed were few and far between, and were all greatly amused to see two foreigners on a scooter in the middle of nowhere. Still, they all responded to our questions of how best to get to Tuktuk by pointing us onward. The road must improve soon, we reasoned. Then we went into the forest. Then the road started looking like this:

You might notice now that this is less "road" and more "bad footpath". Why would the locals have sent us this way? Was this some sort of vicious wind-up? It was pretty much always one on the bike, one walking at this point. We were thus at walking pace, and were glancing nervous eyes at the sun, which was getting a little bit low in the sky. Then the road turned into this:

Morale on the floor, we soldiered on, largely in silence. All in all, this forest section lasted 5km and took an awful long time. The few locals we met passed us on much better bikes, and when we questioned them as to how far we had to go replied with figures varying between 5km and 50km, apparently having misunderstood us.

With hope of getting back before dark diminishing, though, the trees cleared and we found ourselves on a plateau. Houses and phone lines reappeared. The road, though, remained stubbornly unpaved: we had swapped claustrophobic jungle hell for agoraphobic plateau hell. But then, while Katie wrestled the bike over dried puddles ahead, round a bend in the round and down a dip I spotted - holy of holies! - a paved road! I lifted my arms in the air in celebration, and ran to catch her, pausing to take a photo of this shrine in thanks to whatever God it is in devotion to for providing us a route home before nightfall.

Thank you, animist Batak spirit of some description (or possibly Jesus (or possibly just some bloke's tomb))

Once back on the road, it was child's play to zip off in the wrong direction, then stop and ask some locals "just to make sure we're going the right way", then sheepishly head back. "11km" the locals said it was to Tuktuk. We made it 17 or so. Still, we got back in the end. Despite it not being one of the best days of our trip (in fact one of the worst) it was still a valuable experience, and should be a lesson to all those who would drive in Indonesia that maps, locals, and guidebooks are not necessarily to be trusted. The guidebook was right about one thing, though: the view was lovely up there.

Shame our camera doesn't really do it justice (neither did our mood)