Borneo and Hong Kong

Borneo was an extra add on to my trip after Bali. When I planned my trip last year it was always in the back of my head to visit Encarna and Greg in Miri, Sarawak and if going to Borneo of course I should also see wild Orang-Utans in the more northern part, Sabah. I spent the first ten days with Encarna and Greg who gave me what they call the 'Miri Experience'. I didn't know what to expect in a Malaysian town that has the reputation of being kind of boring and I won't get into details but let me say this much that I participated in about six parties in ten days, the first one being the expats yearly 'Play Back Show' where I got to know everybody by their stage name. I promised not to post pictures so please enjoy the daily sunset from their back yard instead. The Play Back Show was a lot of fun, 'say no more'!

  

To see the wild life I flew from Miri to Sandakan in Sabah. I went on a three day trip up the muddy Kinabatangan River which winds it way for more than 500 km. It is one of the places where one has a high chance of seeing wild life as Orang-Utans, Proboscis monkeys, Macaque monkeys, pygmy elephants, crocodiles, hornbills, water monitor lizards and more. I saw them all and it is amazing how a wild animal just catches your attention in a different way than when locked up behind bars in a Zoo.

The Proboscis Monkey is a funny looking animal. You can recognize the dominant male in a group by its long nose and large belly, which is longer and bigger than the other males. The Malay name for Proboscis Monkey I forgot, but I know it means ' Dutchmen' - not a very flattering compliment to the early colonizers of Borneo.

Pygmy elephants are smaller as the name indicates. On one of our cruises up and down the wide, muddy brown river, we spotted a group of three adults and a baby, the baby being no bigger than a Shetland pony. The elephants are difficult to find so it must have been my lucky day. 

Just as I was lucky to see a large Water Monitor Lizard. And a crocodile! They are abundant in the river but you hardly see them since they are very sensitive animals and usually dive into the muddy water when they hear the engine of the boat. Seeing ones makes you even more sure why you don't want to go for a swim..

Three days on the river cruise were very intense. Eyes were wide open all the time - listen, look, listen, look - or we would miss out on these fantastic creatures. They are abundant along Kinabatangan River, however their habitat is becoming smaller and smaller every day due to humans cutting the jungle and making palm oil tree plantations instead. Most of the wild life is indeed endangered. 

After the river I flew back to Kota Kinabalu on the East coast of Sabah and met Encarna and Greg who came up for the weekend with their children Sammy and Maya to enjoy the lively town and the white beaches. I loved to walk around on the local market and watch people. The women wear head scarfs in all kinds of colors beautifully decorated with a bling bling, gold or silver pin. 

My originally planned trip around the world came to an end with a stop over in Hong Kong. From wild life in Borneo to the jungle of the city. But what a city! Especially at night when all the buildings and bill boards are lit, it becomes a 'Symphony of Light'. That is also what the evening spectacle is called when at 8 pm each night a laser show makes the high rise buildings of Hong Kong Island come alive. 

So is this the end? Well, no! Nothing is ever the end. Just transitions. My adventure continues a few weeks more. After a couple of days in The Netherlands where summer has arrived before spring, I fly to Orlando to attend The 2nd Annual Conference of Functional Neurology. I have had enough time off from my wonderful profession and I am looking forward to learn some more, to meet my colleagues and to get the newest research. However.... when in the USA I might as well enjoy my freedom just a little bit longer. The next 5 weeks I am going to drive up the East coast before I fly back to Europe from New York. But that doesn't mean the adventures are over either. I actually think they are truly just to begin when I must decide on where to settle. Will it eventually be Denmark? Time will tell..

Jakarta and Bali

The heat and humidity, the chaos, colors and smells of Bali all around me fill my senses to a point where I start longing for vast, serene landscapes like in Australia and New Zealand. Still it is very relaxing to be in Bali. Probably because there is no rush, nothing seems urgent, things just take the time they take. The heat slows you down. There is no reason to get stressed.

After Gili Trawangan and Sharon’s party the weeks have passed by quickly. Sharon and Tony have generously opened their house to me and I have stayed here most of the time, using it as a comfortable base. During the Bali Spirit Festival I rented a bungalow in the center of Ubud to be closer to the happenings. For four days there were yoga and meditation during the day and concerts  in the evenings.

During day I’d walk around Ubud taking pictures of ill looking Bali-dogs, women selling colorful spices on the market, mean looking masks and fat little Buddha’s. Where ever you look, there is something that catches your eye. Then I'd find the perfect café to get my daily cappuccino. The quality of the coffee is important but so is the place, the atmosphere or in other words commonly used here: the energy. There are lots of cafés and restaurants in Ubud, something for every taste. From small, cheap warungs in the street to very expensive restaurants overlooking the rice fields.  

Bali is very spiritual, there are good and evil spirits all over. Offerings are laid out every morning and evening to keep the spirits happy and good natured. Evil ones are being chased away on ‘Nyepi’, the day of silence, and they can also be ‘extracted’ if they possess you. One day I went to see a traditional Balinese healer. First we talked for about an hour and he gave me good, sound advice on general issues in life, for instance that I am the only one to know what is good for me or where in the world I shall settle (if I am to settle, that is). He then proceeded with a full body massage, and not just any massage but a thorough, deep, painful massage. For some reason I had imagined healing to be kind of soft. When I asked other people what Traditional Balinese Healing is like, they’d answer that ‘it is always an interesting experience’.

Tony and Sharon had told me how different Jakarta is from Bali and it was hard to imagine until I got there. One day I saw women in Bali carry heavy loads of dirt and rock on the head or kids beg for money on the road. The next day I was in Pacific Place Mall in Jakarta where elegantly dressed women shopped for the most trendy bags to fit the color of their high heeled shoes.

I went to Jakarta to see Tony’s clinic and to evaluate a couple of his patients with my skills in functional neurology. I was especially happy to realize that I had not forgotten my knowledge by being off work for more than half a year, also happy to remember how much I love my profession. I am starting to miss it which is a good sign because up until now I just felt I needed a very long break.  

I didn’t really see Jakarta, it’s such a huge city with over 20 million inhabitants and the traffic is terrible. But I enjoyed my trips to Starbucks Coffee on 4^th floor in the mall while Tony worked. One day I went to another mall, the enormous Grand Indonesia Shopping Center that spans over several blocks. Best of all, however, were the Chocolate Martini’s at the prestigious old Hotel Dharma Wangsa.

Back in Ubud with only 10 days left I still hadn’t been to the central part of Bali so I hired a driver to take me up to Kintamani and Lake Batur, a beautiful blue lake in the crater of Gunung Batur, a volcano. However the clouds were hanging low and the fog was so thick that I saw nothing. It is often times like that in the mountains and my luck has not been with me lately when it comes to the weather.

Instead the driver took me over to Pura Besakih. Perched nearly 1000 meters up the side of Gunung Agung, it is Bali’s most important temple, dating back to prehistoric times. A big ceremony was taking place and hundreds or maybe thousands of gorgeously dressed Balinese turned up with beautifully arranged offerings – and umbrellas because it rained heavily. True torrential, tropical downpour that turned the stepped streets into rivers.

It was still interesting to see the temple, though, especially during a festival. The next day the sun was shining so I jumped on the bicycle and went into Ubud to get a massage or two. Refreshed and relaxed I headed out of town. You only have to get one or two kilometers out of town to be alone, surrounded by lush, green, green rice fields.

Another day I went up to Bedugul with Risa, a beautiful Japanese woman I met when I first arrived in Ubud. We hired a driver and gradually left the rice terraces behind while we ascended into the cool, misty mountain country around the lake, Danau Bratan. Of course it started raining so we had him take us around the Botanical Gardens in the car.  Further up in Candikuning we bought strawberries, spices and vanilla at the colorful local market.  

Pura Ulun Danu Bratan is a small but important Hindu-Buddhist temple build on small islands, which means it is completely surrounded by the lake. The classical Hindu thatch-roofed meru (multi roofed shrines) reflected in the water and silhouetted against the cloudy mountain backdrop provided a true Bali-photo-cliché, just as it is described in Lonely Planet.

During the past seven weeks I spent in Bali I got to know quite a few people, most of them through Tony and Sharon. Some of them we invited over for lunch on Sunday to a little make-shift birthday party, far away from home, but none-the-less a mile stone worth celebrating. I am not particularly attached to numbers, I must say. 40 or 50, who cares when you feel you are 30? J  

On the day itself, I treated myself to a couple of massages and later I got a Tarot card reading by Szilvia from Hungary. My future looks very bright according to the cards and more adventures are to come. Taken that life is one big adventure in itself it is up to ourselves to make the best out of it. Most important it is to stay curious with an open mind. Then anything can happen!

 

Gili Trawangan

Sharon’s 50^th birthday continued for another three days on Gili Trawangan. Next morning, fourteen of us, mostly Sharon and Tony’s family drove to Denpasar, then boarded a small plane bound for Lombok, drove another hour on very poorly maintained, winding mountain roads just to make the misery (read: hang over) worse by entering a small boat that took us over to our resort, The Beach House.

But soon all misery was forgotten! The larger villa had a swimming pool and four rooms, big enough to accommodate Tony, Sharon with kids plus Penny and Lee. Bernice, Robert, Lizet, Mark and I got individual bungalows at the back. The open restaurant was right on the beach, sand on the floor, serving tropical drinks and playing good old music, perfect for our age group. It is quite funny that tropical islands play the same kind of music as when I was backpacking in Asia 1982. Reggae for the most part of it. Newer names suitable for beach bars is Jack Johnson.

The Gili’s are three tiny islands just off the west coast of Lombok. One can easily walk around Gili Trawangan in less than two hours. There are no cars and only a few restaurants have internet access. It has a reputation of being a party island. All the way along the north-east beach front, restaurants and bars were lined up as pearls on a string. In spite of the group being slightly ‘worn’ from partying the previous night, the spirits soon rose to higher levels when we got a Gin Tonic. Tony and Sharon treated us all with drinks and food that night. For days we have been talking about how wonderful of a time everybody had and some suggested that it was because of the nice group of people attending and no doubt we all contributed to that (we really were nice) but Tony and Sharon Dawson deserves full credit for putting it all together.  

Sharon had planned, arranged and cooked for weeks. Hospitality at the highest level!

I feel very lucky that I came to Bali at this very moment. Thanks to Face Book I got contact with Tony. Hadn't talked to the dude for 20 years. Then I met his beautiful wife Sharon, who put me up in their guest house and she invited me to her birthday party including the trip to Gili Trawangan. After traveling on my own for 5 months it has been wonderful to be part of a family and be with like minded people. Traveling on your own is great fun, too, but after a while I started missing being with people I know. It takes a few days to get to know people and I got more than that. I got friends for life.

Several times I have referred to myself as a flashpacker, i.e. a backpacker who uses a suitcase or travel bag instead of a rucksack and who has a little bit more money on their account than the average (younger) backpacker. When I was picking out a suitable size lobster for my dinner I felt flashier than ever, remembering the daily plates of fried rice which made up my diet in 1982.

Besides having a good time enjoying delicious food and wine in the evenings we relaxed to the max during the day, whether it was in the pool,  on the beach or by walking around the island. One morning Sharon, Lee, Penny, Bernice, Robert and I went horse riding. It was rather hot but still fun, especially along the beach. That’s always a treat whether on a horse or not.

 

We even squeezed in a snorkeling trip on the last morning. We saw two large turtles, the average tropical fish and some corals; nothing spectacular compared to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, but non-the-less a treat for the eye and always fun to be on a boat on warm waters.

Today, 20^th of March is the date I was supposed fly back to Amsterdam via Hong Kong. At least that was the original plan when I booked my ticket in September. It would be the end my 6 months sabbatical. Six months go way too fast!!

But I haven’t seen enough yet and I am not ready to settle. Traveling is fantastic so I have postponed my ticket in order to be able to attend the Annual Functional Neurology Conference in Florida in May. I am looking forward to see my colleagues and get 'into it again' after an eight months long break from chiropractic and neurology. I still haven’t decided where I want to live next and I am not at all worried about not knowing as long as I have money on my account – it is actually a wonderful thing to be able to ‘go with the flow’ and let things unfold along the way. Life in Europe can be rather rigid.

This trip was the right thing to do, something I will never regret. When will I ever again get a chance to do what I do now? I don’t remember who said it but it could be Anthony Robbins: 'It is better to regret the things you did than to regret what you didn’t do'.

Bali

After two months in beautiful, serene, ‘empty’ New Zealand, Bali seems the complete opposite. Noisy, lively, congested, full! Not so much full of people though there are 3 million Balinese on this fairly small island but the land appears to be used to the max with rice fields and terraces, houses, temples, statues, narrow roads packed with scooters, bemo’s, cars and homeless, skinny Bali dogs. And then of course all the vegetation which is extremely dense in the rainy season. Everything is green, not a single piece of bare land is spotted. It is hot and humid, crickets, frogs and gecko’s make up a choir of their own at night, roosters wake me up at four in the morning while barking dogs chime in at sunrise.

The first week I stayed at Sharon and Tony Dawson’s home White Lotus Villas in Sayan just outside Ubud. Tony is in Jakarta during the week so Sharon and I had plenty of time together and she has helped me look for a bungalow in Penestanan, walking distance to both Sayan and Ubud. ‘Santra Putra’ is owned and run by a Balinese painting artist, Wayan Karja. The rooms are big and have a huge patio, the ones on first floor with a view to the rice fields.

I couldn’t get a room before March 7^th so I took the bus down to Candidasa on the south-east coast for some days where I rented a nice bungalow right on the ocean.

I was the only guest at Pondok Pisang Bungalows which I totally enjoyed. Four days of solitude. Sleep in. A good book. I was reading about Law of Attraction while a Balinese lady walk by and ask if I want a massage? Oh yes, one per day, please, right there on my patio with the only sound being the waves breaking and the wind in the palm trees with a warm breeze cooling me off. An hour massage for 7 dollars, who would say no?

I had been looking forward to staying in bungalows all by myself. After five months of sleeping in dorms I had enough of people snoring, squeaking bunk beds, slamming doors, Asian girls keeping the light on at night or packing and unpacking their backpacks at times when everybody else sleep. Just me alone in a big bed, quiet and peaceful.   

However I had forgotten that it is never quiet in the tropics and that one seldom sleeps alone. Mosquito’s, spiders, frogs, lizards and ants are the most common encounters but in Candidasa a gecko peeked out from behind the mirror every night, stared at me for a looong time before it GEC-KO’ed really loud like it said “What the hell is she doing in my room”. I did get the bed for myself, though.

Back in Ubud I stayed for Nyepi with Sharon and the kids. Nyepi is a day of complete silence. Nobody is allowed on the street, no electricity is to be used, no TV or radio, no nothing. The whole island is quiet for 24 hours, except for the roosters and barking dogs that just don’t get the idea. Sharon, her friend Pamela and I enjoyed dinner by candle light and succeeded in opening a bottle of Champaign without the familiar popping sound.

                           

The day before Nyepi, the Balinese have parades with huge, paper maché dolls called ‘Ogoh-Ogoh’ which with their mean looking fangs and long nails have a good chance of scaring away the evil spirits. Fireworks and -crackers help the spirits on their way. The silence then, as far I understand, is to not draw the attention of evil spirits.

The other day I had a weird experience. Two actually. I went to buy a present for Sharon’s birthday.
In the store was a Japanese woman who lives in California so we got to chat and it happened that she knew my colleague Sergio in San Francisco. What is the chance of a Dane and a Japanese running in to each other on the other side of the world and have friends in common in the States?

Two hours later I have dinner at a small ‘warung’ (eat house) next door to Santra Putra Guest House. Two guys are sitting on the floor at one of the low tables. They look pretty nice so I sit down next to them, I’m always ready for a chat. From the accent I guess one of them is Scottish so I say, that I know a girl in Glasgow. And sure enough, he had seen my colleague, Mette in Bearsden for a chiropractic treatment. Coincidences? Law of Attraction? Or is it the mystical concept called ‘Bali Telephone’?



Friday early morning March 12th I woke up because my bed was moving forth and back. Half asleep and with no reference to prior experience of earth quakes I first thought that the people upstairs were coming home, walking on the stairs with wooden shoes. Then the large glass doors started to rattle with much noise while my bed still moved forth and back. Still half asleep it was like being on drugs - I had no fear at all - and now I thought, “that’s some mighty strong wind gusts that can shake a house build of stone”.  It lasted maybe a minute and by the time it had stopped I was fully awake, realizing it must have been an earth quake! Eventually I had felt an earth quake! It was really cool and I was very much exited.     

Not so cool, however, to hear the news later that day that an 8,9 magnitude earth quake had hit Japan followed by an unbelievably devastating tsunami. It literally shakes you to see such destruction caused by nature.

It was Sharon’s 50^th birthday and people started to show up for her big party. We danced in the garden under the sheltering sky celebrating life and feeling utterly thankful for being safe and sound.  The next morning a small group of friends and family traveled to Gili Trawangan, a tiny island between Bali and Lombok.

More about Gili Trawangan in the next blog.

Last week in Aotearoa (New Zealand)

Nine wonderful weeks in New Zealand are coming to an end. Coming back up to the north island has been less stunning nature wise. Socially it has been the best.  On a three day tour to East Cape, we were a small group with just Chelle, Paul, me and our guide Leigh (plus an older, rather posh English woman not worth mentioning). One evening we had BBQ, played guitar and piano and the next morning we got up early to greet the sunrise as the first in the world.

The East part of the North Island has the largest population of Mauri, the first people to inhabit New Zealand some 800 years ago. They make beautiful wood carvings as seen here on the portal to a church. Churches often make great pictures on a sunny day so here's another one from Coromandel Town. 

Mauri wood carving

Cathedral Cove in Hahei on the coast of Coromandel Peninsula is an attraction that is beautiful in itself but hard to take a picture of without loads of tourists on it. At the moment however the track down to the beach is closed due to rock fall after heavy rains so only a couple of brave people were spotted in the cove. I went there on a boat on rather rough seas so the pics are all slanted, not worth posting. The scenery was used in the movie 'Chronicles Of Narnia' so if you've seen that you've seen Cathedral Cove.

After the tour out to East Cape I spent a night in the former gold mining and Kauri tree logging town of Thames. Nowadays they advertise the town by ‘having had 100 bars and hotels’ during those golden times but now there are only a few. The sunset was probably as beautiful as in ‘them good ol' times’.

Here at the end of my visit to New Zealand I don’t know what exactly to write about, after all the pace of my adventures have slowed down quite a bit. It just happened naturally and it is a good preparation for the coming month in Bali where I want to stay in one place the entire time. A small bungalow to myself, no squeaking bunk beds or slamming doors. Yeah, kind of like in ‘Eat, Pray, Love’. I am looking forward to new adventures and the smells and sounds of exotic Asia!

Fairy-tale landscape in Tatapouri, East Cape

Mt Cook and Kaikoura, New Zealand

The forecast was good for the day that Silke and I had planned to hike up to Mueller Hut. Mueller Hut is a refuge build for hikers in 1800 meter’s altitude. The track goes up a steep and rugged mountain and is quite strenuous.  The top of the mountain was still covered in clouds when we set out from the hostel way down in the valley. It didn't rain a lot, just enough to make us worry if we would be able to make such a long trip.

I considered turning around several times but lots of people had highly recommended this particular track so how hard could it be? I am in pretty good shape by now but four hours straight up into thin air is tough. Eventually we got to the top of the mountain after a difficult part with loose pebbles and rock. We then traversed along the ridge on huge boulders another half hour before Mueller Hut appeared in the dispersing clouds.

The moment we reached the hut the sun broke through and we were rewarded with a stunning view of glaciers, the snow capped mountains Mount Cook and Mount Sefton, rock as far as you could see. A rumbling sound from a lavine. Otherwise stillness!

Mount Cook, 3754 meters

Kea. Native mountain parrot

Going down seemed easier than we had expected in spite of it being strenuous. The views of Mount Cook and Hooker Valley were beautiful, the weather perfect. Unfortunately, half way down, I suddenly twisted my ankle on a narrow rocky passage. We still had to hike for two hours before reaching the valley. Strangely enough I could walk, though carefully. So I ‘sucked it up and kept walking’, lots cheaper than a helicopter rescue and it still makes a good story.

Enjoying good food and fine wines at the Hermitage after the hike.

After Mount Cook I spent a few more days with Silke in Lake Tekapo and Christchurch before I headed up to Kaikoura which is a small town on the East Coast of the South Island, famous for whales, dolphins, seals and albatross. One huge sperm whale had been spotted that day off the coast of Kaikoura. The whales dive for 45-60 minutes, breathe for 10 minutes spewing water before it dives down again, exposing its tail for a few seconds.

Yes, I took that picture!

On the way back from whale watching we saw hundreds of playing dusky dolphins, an albatross and a couple of fur seals. I guess I took hundreds of pictures to be sure to catch a few dolphins in the air.