Last of the Long Weekends (boo!)

The countdown is officially on. Amy’s teaching contract is over at the end of May, and while they would love to have her stay on forever (they love Ms. Amy!), Amy is firmly in “been there, done that” mode (i.e., she is not signing on for another year). Alas, we are moving on from Indonesia Phase-1 – at least taking a break from it – if for no other reason than as of Amy’s last day, we will have 5 days to leave the country, at which time we are no longer legal residents. It’s that “residency” thing….you can’t just live in Indonesia if you don’t have a job.


So what’s the plan? In a nutshell, we leave Indo on 22 May. First stop: Trekking in Nepal. Every since I went trekking in Nepal back in the early 90s (I think by saying that, I am officially giving myself “old guy” status), I vowed to go back. Amy’s getting tired of me saying so, so, we’re going back! Besides, it’s doubtful we will ever be in a position to get a $200 flight to Katmandu! Our adventures in Nepal will surely be the subject of a future blog post. Stand by for that one.


So a month of trekking in Nepal, then back to Bogor for a few weeks to pack up, and then back to the motherland (Canada) by mid-July. In the meantime, a couple of final long weekends have popped up in Amy’s teaching schedule. The loyal followers among you will know that a long weekend means dealing with the first-world problem of “where to go, what to do”? Such misery. J Although, we also feel the pressure to milk our precious few remaining long weekends.


Final long weekend number 1 was spent returning to Bali. As mentioned in previous posts, Bali has grown on us. It could be the familiarity, the friends we now have there, the good food and wine, the sun and surf, the lack of mosques waking you up at 4 am, the fun things to do…..what am I saying, it’s all of those things! J

So ya, back to Bali for a few days, if for nothing else than to say good-bye. Although, we did have a mission in mind: mountain biking. We could have picked another volcano to climb (which is also fun!), but we thought we would mix it up this time and try out the Bali riding scene. 


Despite our hatred of guided tours – especially those in Indonesia – we really had no choice but to sign up with a guide outfitter given that we didn’t want to box up our bikes and fly them across Indo (and back) for 1 day of riding. That, and, a small but significant detail: we have no idea where to go. It’s that Indo thing again: nothing is described, there are no guide books, trail maps, or signage – a fantastic business model for the guides, but “challenging” to say the least for us DIYers. 


There are plenty of mountain biking operators in Bali offering more/less the same product, including: pick-up anywhere in southern Bali (where most travelers are staying), all bikes and gear, food and water for the day, a guide, and then drop-off back at your accommodation. All in all, a pretty complete package – you just gotta show up. Easy! – which in Indo, is critical to maintaining your sanity.


We went with “Infinity Mountain Biking” (google it, if interested), mostly because they offer a 65-km ride from the top of a volcano crater (Mt. Batur), down to the iconic Bali town of Ubud (of “Eat, Pray, Love” fame). They rate the ride as “hard/advanced” and it’s their “longest day ride”. Sign us up! We were hoping the “hard” rating would keep people away – it worked! – just us and one other Swiss dude.


It was a fun day. The bikes and gear were brand-new full-suspension high-quality bikes (Polygon Siskiu T8 29ers – for you gear heads), and as advertised, they delivered the pick-up (on time!) and drop-off at our accom, snacks and food, and the guide was actually a decent and fit rider who didn’t get us lost (not always the case here in Indo). The route was fantastic and indeed took us from the top of a volcano crater, down through a recent lava flow, back up to the rim, then down through the rice paddies, temples, and villages of rural Bali – a really cool cross-section of all that is Bali. Nice. Full points to Infinity!


Final long weekend number 2 was another volcano mission: Gunung (Mt.) Lawu. On the advice of our gunung-guru buddy Dan Quinn (the guy behind gunungbagging.com), we set our sights on Lawu because it involves relatively easy logistics – again key to sanity here in Indo (we have learned the hard way!). A quick 50-mins flight to the city of Solo in Central Java, and we were sitting poolside at the Solo Best Western in downtown Solo – not our usual scenario, but Amy wanted to try out a big-city “high-rise hotel”, and, we couldn’t resist the 40-USD/night price for a 4-star hotel. 


Day 2 was an arranged 4-am pick-up at the door of the hotel, complete with breakfast in a box. An hour or so later we were strapping on our boots and heading up the side of a volcano. How’s that for easy? Not to mention that Indo is likely the only place in the world where you can get a car (air-con Toyota Avanza) with driver, for the day (12 hours), for 50 USD all-in. 


At 3,265 m, Lawu is one of the bigger peaks in Java. But, because the trailhead starts at 1900 m, it’s totally doable as a day hike. The weather was fantastic and we had the up track and great views to ourselves. Despite the tropical latitudes, at 3000 m the terrain is alpine and very reminiscent of the mountains of western Canada. Nice!


The jubilation of having a mountain to ourselves came crashing down upon our victorious arrival at the summit – where we were greeted by the hordes of gunung-bagging teenagers that seem to have taken over the Indonesian gunung-bagging scene. Not that we dislike teenagers per se, but the chain smoking, the giggling and shrieking, the distorted Indo-pop blasting from their phones, and the constant barrage of selfie requests with us (it’s a thing – we’re like rock stars to them for some reason), just isn’t what we’re looking for at the top of a mountain. Amy seems to be particularly popular with the selfie crowd – blonde hair? Pale skin? OK, what am I? Chopped liver over here? J


Ah well, all part of the fun here in Indo! And fun it is, or shall we say, was…is this our last gunung-bagging mission? Boo! 


But you know, I don’t think so. I think we’ll be back for more one day….   

Tioman Island, Malaysia – world’s most beautiful island….in 1970

The usual situation was upon us: Amy gets a week off from her teaching job (March Break), and we’re left wondering where to go, what to do – a serious first-world problem! Amy was keen on a beach mission (surprise surprise), but we also wanted to go beyond Bali and/or Indonesia…you know, the “something different” thing.

We had heard from a friend in Singapore (hi Andrea!) that Tioman Island, off the east coast of Malaysia was worthy. In fact, get this, in 1970, Time Magazine voted it as one of the most beautiful islands in the world. Ya, but they were also into plaid and polyester back then too (something about a leisure suit) J

Anyhooo, looking at a map, the basic mission for us would involve a flight from Jakarta to Singapore, then a 4ish-hr bus ride across the border into Malaysia to a port on the east coast, where we would catch a 2ish-hr ferry to Tioman. Hmmm, didn’t seem too bad (more on that later!).

Who could resist the most beautiful island in the world? Giddy up! Let’s do this!

And so it was. Flights booked, check, buses booked, check, ferries booked check, accom booked, check. Check check check, all systems go. We even booked a 24-hr stopover in Singapore on the way through to visit our friend Andrea, and split a bottle of Prosecco on the rooftop of the Marina Bay Sands – Singapore’s iconic boat-on-top-of-high-rises hotel in downtown Singapore. Not cheap (did I mention that Singapore is the world’s most expensive city?), but hey, sometimes you just gotta pull out the plastic. It was one of those times. Very cool!

All was going swimmingly, until my body was rudely attacked by an infection of some kind that manifested itself in the form of an out-of-control hang nail on my left ring finger that exploded into a raging infection that threaten to eat my hand. Being in Singapore – home to some of the best medical care on the planet – it seemed foolhardy to venture onwards to a remote island off the coast of a developing country with a raging infection underway.

Sometimes you just have to make hard decisions. We chose the Singapore health care system over our meticulously planned 6-am bus departure and all points east, and voila, we were now into Plan B. Plan B was: go to the hospital, get treated, get on antibiotics or whatever else they throw at me, come back to Andrea’s pad, then figure out how we are now going to get to Tioman by alternative means – not an easy task!

Anyway, we'll skip over the gory details, but 24 hours +/- later, after a visit to the Singapore National University Hospital (full points to the Singapore health care system!), we found ourselves firmly on Tioman Island soil, enjoying the fruits of our Plan B – which turned out to be a midnight bus (more fun!) through Malaysia, to the port town of Mersing, then onto a crack-of-dawn ferry, and over to Tioman in all of our sleep-deprived glory. Definitely the part of travelling we can do without.

Our first port of call, a place called “Paya” on the west side of the island, turned out to be an over-crowded resort situation catering to loud fluorescent Asian tourists. Although, given my medical situation dominated by a bandaged finger and doctor’s instructions to “keep it dry” (er, doc: did I tell you I’m on my way to a tropical island for a week of holiday?), the air-con room was actually a good clean place to heal my wounds. It’s that infection thing. Clean is good. So it actually wasn’t that bad to be in a resort situation for a couple nights.

The true prize – and the reason we might even say Tioman is the world’s most beautiful island – was when we switched gears and made our butts to the east side of the island, and a place called Juara. Ah Juara…..wow.  Looking for that perfect beach to chill, feet in the sand, perhaps a glass of wine at sunset, and let’s not forget crawling out of bed and into the ocean for a morning dip? If you answered yes, then Juara is for you.

Juara delivers in that “chill beach/feet-in-the-sand” category. It’s that perfect combo of just enough infrastructure (you know, cold beer, beach chairs, and an outdoor shower – what else do you need?), but no glitzy shiny resort-style mega-developments. From what we gathered, the lack of development has something to do with a combo of no direct ferry connections (i.e., the ferry doesn’t land in Juara, you have to drive over from the west side of the island), marine park status around the entire island, and something about a rule that makes it illegal to build anything over three stories high.

Whatever the reason, no complaints – it’s what makes Juara special among all the places we have ever been. It’s just hard to find beaches on this planet that aren’t over-done and ruined by overdevelopment. Somehow, Juara remains relatively unspoiled. (but don’t tell anyone! J)

So ya, 5 or so nights of red wine sunsets, coffee sunrises, morning swims, snorkeling, paddle-boarding, jungle walks to tropical waterfalls, cold beer in the afternoon, walks on the beach, dinners in the moonlight – oh, did I mention the full moon! Wow, absolutely stunning full moons night after night shimmering off the ocean. We both agreed it was probably the most stunning full-moon show we have ever seen.

As an added bonus, if you can believe it, the entire island has “duty free” status for some weird reason (never did figure out why) – meaning at strategic locations, there are duty-free booze stores offering up cheap beer, spirits, and wine! Coming from wineless Indo, we were like kids in a candy store – the kind that shop for good bottles of red wine J  Those full moons just got better and better.

Well, as the story goes, all good things must come to an end. We reluctantly packed up, arranged our ride over the island to the ferry terminal, ferry to the mainland, into a car to take us to the Malaysia-Singapore border, into another car and a 2-hr wait at the border (borders eh….nothing but trouble). We were sweating bullets as we pulled into Singapore’s International Terminal with about 30 mins left on the clock before take-off.

Anywhere else we would have been too late. But this is Singapore. No lines, no waits. Within 10 minutes of entering the glass doors of Terminal 3, we were on the other side of security, boarding pass in hand, and heading to the gate. We made it to the gate, flashed our boarding pass, and walked onto the plane. 

Sometimes, you just have to believe in miracles.

Could not have said it better!

Pulau Bunaken and the Coral Triangle

Coral Triangle, what is? Google that and you will learn about one of the world’s hottest of all biodiversity hotspots. It’s the Amazon Rainforest of the ocean. Coral reefs make up only 1% of ocean area, but account for over 25% of all marine life. The Coral Triangle, containing 76% of all known coral species in the world, is ground zero. The list of record-setting factoids is endless, and includes such accolades as: 

·         the highest diversity of reef fishes in the world

·         the greatest extent of mangrove forests in the world

·         home to 6 of the 7 marine turtle species in the world

You get the point. It’s another “lungs of the planet” situation.

OK, so what does this have to do with us? Well, the Coral Triangle is Indonesia’s backyard. It’s a somewhat triangular shaped blob starting in the Philippines, extending down through Borneo, over and across eastern Indonesia, and then through Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands (see map). 

For obvious reasons, the Coral Triangle is a diving and snorkeling mecca, containing some of the best dive and snorkel sites on the planet. It’s been on our “to-do” list since we’ve been in Indo, and it was next on the list. Last weekend was the infamous Asian holiday weekend known as CNY – Chinese New Year (see previous post for the story on that one), giving us a 4-day mini-holiday, and the perfect opportunity for a snorkeling trip to the Coral Triangle. Ya baby!

Now, saying you’re going to the Coral Triangle is like saying you’re going to Europe. It’s a big place with an infinite number of destination possibilities. Doing the math, and all things considered, we set our sights on the pseudo-famous, yet very chill, Pulau Bunaken – AKA Bunaken Island (i.e., pulau = island in Indonesian).  The beauty of Bunaken is that it’s smack dab in the middle of the Coral Triangle, is rated as one of the world’s top dive sites, and, the clincher is that there are direct non-stop flights from Jakarta to the nearby city of Manado, right at the northern tip of Sulawesi – one of Indonesia’s “big” islands.

Get this: Bunaken is at 1.4^o latitude – basically on the equator. Daily average temps are pretty much the same, hovering around 25 to 26^o C, every day. Like most of Indonesia, it’s just always warm, 24/7/365.

So that was the drill: taxi to Jakarta airport, 3-hr flight from Jakarta to Manado, taxi ride to the nearest wharf, 45-min boat ride to Bunaken Island – et voila, we are in the middle of the Coral Triangle. Nice. Although, truth be told, it was a long haul made worse by a flight delay, then a traffic jam in Manado, followed by us missing our boat connection and having to arrange a second boat at another location. Definitely the part of traveling you need to block out of your mind. We’re over it J

Arriving in the dark, and in the rain, we were just grateful to be there. Being a domestic flight, we pulled out a bottle of shiraz we had stuffed into our check-in bag and listened to the sounds of a hot and sticky tropical evening. Life isn’t so bad after all.

Day 1 was first spent exploring the island – all 8 km² of it. It’s small at about 1 km wide by 8 km long, but big enough to have a village (not surprisingly called Bunaken), and a “road” made out of interlocking patio stones. No cars though! – only the odd motorbike that the locals use to shuffle themselves around with. We wanted the island tour, so we gave a guy 8 bucks to use his motorbike for the afternoon. You haven’t really been to Indonesia until you have ridden around a small tropical island on a rented 100-cc Honda motorbike. No helmet, no license, no insurance….no problem! J

Despite the fun of riding a motorbike around a tropical island, the real event for us was seeing one of the best diving and snorkeling sites in the world, with our faces in the water. We specifically stayed at a place with access to the reefs and good snorkeling out the front door. High tide was required to get past the reef that rings the island, and get out into the open ocean – that’s the zone, the outside of the reef where it hits the dark blue of the open ocean.

That’s what makes Bunaken what it is: big, deep, endless walls of coral plunging into the depths of the ocean.  Combine that with an equatorial climate (the “always warm” thing), and a rat’s nest of ocean currents swirling around nutrients and keeping things fresh, you get an underwater tropical forest. 

It’s those massive underwater cliffs crawling with coral that make snorkeling here so surreal. It must be as close to feeling space travel as you can get without actually going into space. There you are, floating on the surface, maybe 2 or 3 m of water between you and the reef, effortlessly drifting in the current, the silence and the enormity of the ocean surrounds you, then wham! – you slowly glide over the edge of the reef and out into the endless expanse of space. It’s an intense feeling – like watching those drone videos of the Grand Canyon on You tube.

The highlight of the mission was Day 2, when we high-jacked a dive boat and came along for the ride. 10 bucks each for a 2-dive mission (we snorkeled obviously). Now that’s a deal! Getting out on a boat was definitely the ticket. The obvious reason for that is that being on a boat with locals means you can go to the primo sites – which is what we did! And the boys delivered! Never have we seen so many fish, of so many colours and stripes, all simply dancing around you like it’s their job to entertain the humans. Oh, and the sea turtles! We lost count. It’s literally like being dropped into a giant aquarium.

After, back on the boat, going back to base, wind in our hair….we both agreed: that was the best snorkeling of our lives. Overall, thumbs up on Bunaken.