We had a lovely sleep in this morning – over 9 hours! Clearly we were needed it.
Continue reading “Tea Appreciation Class and Merlion Madness (Singapore Day One)”
Month: October 2017
Jogja -> Singapore Transfer Day
4:15 a.m. is incredibly early to get up for a flight, unless you went to bed at 8. Then it’s not so bad.
This travel day was so much better than the last time we had to fly. But I’m getting ahead of myself a bit. We didn’t sleep through any alarms and were up and moving on schedule. Our checkout was painless, as I called down beforehand asking for the bill to be ready. Trying to explain what ‘bill’ meant was interesting, but he eventually got it. Our taksi to the airport was ½ the price the hotel charged us on the transfer from the airport, so that was a happy surprise, and we arrived at the airport in record time, thanks to very little traffic so early.
We were on a plane with probably over 100 people, and they were all wearing the same fabric pattern. Sal thinks they were part of a religious group, which would make sense because when we were getting ready to land someone said what I believe was a prayer over the PA system. The flight was about 25 minutes late, but this is Air Asia we’re talking about and that’s practically on time. So no complaints and a basically easy transfer. Huzzah!
Before we knew it, we were descending into Singapore. Now I had heard about how great the singapore airport is supposed to be. I’m not sure what I expected. There’s still a lot we haven’t seen, though, and we’ll spend more time there before our outbound flight. There were only two things I noticed that stood out to me: 1) free foot massage chairs, 2) at immigration they had little candies next to the agents booths. It was very quiet at baggage claim (sorta like Zurich), and you had to have your bags scanned again before exiting completely.
We got some cash from the ATM (there seems to always be a little section at these Asian airports with several different ATM brands), and got a cab without waiting in any line. It was around lunchtime, so apparently that’s a good time to arrive and miss long queues. The cab to the hotel was about $17 USD for about a 25 minute ride.
We got a good deal at the Four Seasons and decided to start the trip in the Orchard Road section of Singapore, which is basically the mall/shopping section, it seems. They let us check in a few hours early, which was great.
It’s a bit strange going from Indonesia to Singapore. Things are extremely clean here and modern looking. I almost feel like I’m back home, except it’s more clean than back home. It’s also hotter. Holy crap when they talk about the humidity here they aren’t kidding. No wonder there are so many malls – people can’t stand being outside too long! Food courts are a big deal here because of the quality of food and the prices. We went to one in the Ion Mall, which is just a couple blocks from Four Seasons. It was crowded and a we felt like we were running into everyone. We got some dim sum and some sweet snacks. In my opinion it was slightly overwhelming, but I think the next time will be easier as we’ll know what to expect. There were tons of different food options and most of them looked quite yummy. We are researching the best food courts in the city, and will check a few more out before the end of the trip.
This is the only pic I took at one of the bread shops.
We wandered around the mall a bit, trying to decide what to do. I have to say, the hot weather is a real issue here. Most of our sightseeing will probably be in the mornings. Anyway, we got some refreshments and sat in the shade for a bit. We then decided to go get an early dinner, as we hadn’t really had all that much for lunch. The original food court place we were looking for ended up being closed for renovations, so we decided to go back to Ion, but to a restaurant we saw on the top floor that was a chain restaurant with a michelin star, Putien. We got there right when they opened. They immediately sat us down and gave us three different menus, with pictures that included English. They also gave us a little ziploc bag to put our phones in so that the soup wouldn’t spill on them. No joke.
It was hard to decide what to try. We asked the waiter to tell us if we ordered too much, as we weren’t sure what the portion size would be. He reviewed our order and said it seemed like enough for two people. Try more like four people, fella!
Notice the gloves by the bun – you put them on to put the pork on the bun and eat it. The other odd thing was that when you ask for water it comes hot. Oddly, it’s not unpleasant to drink hot water.
The excitement of the day happened about ½ way through the meal, when Sal was trying my berry tea drink:
I heard a crash and looked over, and Sal was still holding the glass, while the bottom and all of the red liquid was on the table and Sal himself. It was a clean break, with no glass shards. Sal, “I didn’t do anything!”. We laughed a bit. Sal’s pants proved that they were, indeed, water resistant; it beaded right off. Nice. There was a lot that spilled on his shirt, but that ended up washing out nicely once we got back to the hotel. As soon as it happened there were about 5 people at the table cleaning it and giving him napkins to clean himself. They gave me a new tea. I had to wonder, in America if that had happened would they have offered to at least to clean the shirt? Hard telling, I guess. Oh, well. Made for some excitement, if nothing else! We did really enjoy the food. There was just too much of it!
We walked back to the FS and had a night cocktail and retired to this room view. Not bad.
Borobudur! (Jogja Day Three)
Today was the second half of the reason we wanted to come to Java: Borobudur. I saw a picture of it online and said, ‘I want to go there.’™ Liz Lemon (30 Rock).
Half Day Tour Bird Market (Jogja Day Two)
Although we had originally thought we’d like to do two full day tours and take one day off, we decided at the last minute to add another ½ day tour with Ibot. Our first stop was a bakery-type place where we got some good pastries – some savory, some sweet – for breakfast. It was 1/10 the price of the hotel breakfast the day before and equally tasty.
Continue reading “Half Day Tour Bird Market (Jogja Day Two)”
First Full Day Tour (Jogja Day One)
The locals call it Jogja, not Yogyakarta, so I will as well.
We had planned a tour that wasn’t going to start until 2:30 p.m. and that was a wise move. We were tired from the travel day before and it was nice to relax and catch up with some people, get laundry sorted, etc. We needed a bit of a rest. Or at least I did.
Wakatobi -> Yogyakarta Transfer Day
I’m writing this post two weeks into the trip, and just thinking about this transfer day makes me twitch a bit. It started out fine, at 9:30 a.m., sadly leaving Wakatobi after hugging some of our favorites. Then we had a short boat ride, then car ride, to where the Wakatobi Air Strip is located. The flight back to Bali was no problem. We had scheduled our flight to Yogyakarta at 7:30 p.m., so we had a very long wait between the flights. There is a food court across the street from the airport, so we went there to hang at Starbucks. You can’t check your luggage in until two hours before the flight. We finally checked in, then I did a little shopping and we went to find some dinner. I basically had their version of a grilled cheese. Oh, and we bought some cream puffs for later on the plane, and they were delish.
Back to the flight. So we got off relatively on time, but once we got to our destination we were not allowed to land. So, yeah. We flew around and around for an extra hour and 50 minutes. Normally, no biggie. The problem was the miserable baby who quite literally cried 95% of the flight. He was so tired and unhappy. After listening to it for a few hours I almost joined him with the water works. It was headache-inducing. We finally landed, hurrah! But we were stuck on the runway for another 30 minutes or so. Boo! Please – just get me off the plane with the crying baby! We were just so exhausted. The funny thing about the crying baby was that when we got in the aisle to deplane we saw there were actually two criers, and we only discovered that because they were crying a duet. They were both from the same family.
Once we finally had a parking spot for the plane and could disembark, it was time to wait for the luggage. Every minute felt like an hour, thanks to the general exhaustion. Eventually the luggage carousel started and then we pretty quickly found our luggage. We also quickly found the driver to take us to the hotel; a very happy smiling gentleman, who told us there was an air show for the army (?) the next day and they were practicing that day/night and thus the delay. Ah ha! No wonder!
We made it to the hotel in about 25 minutes, which not bad. We were welcomed and checked in pretty quickly. They offered us local snacks and some tea. It was then Sal noticed his phone was missing. Oh boy. We searched his bag once, twice, three times to no avail. We looked on maps at the phone location and it was near the hotel. One of the bellboys went to the taxi and found it and returned it. Hallelujah. We were exhausted and just wanted to go to the room to sleep.
The Phoenix Hotel looks like something you might find in the south in America. It’s older, built in 1918, but it has charm. And the toilet is even separated from the shower!
This is where they keep the complimentary snacks. How cool is that?
And in the bathroom there were these busts that you open up and have all of the complimentary items you could possibly need during a stay. Unusual; I like it!
We are in a city that is filled with Mosques, and the hotel is near one. They provide earplugs to help with the call to prayers that happen five times per day. The first night I barely heard anything. Here is some info on Salah.
And that’s all she wrote for the travel day. It was long. But definitely worth it, as you’ll see in the next post.
A Week In Wakatobi
NOTE: We don’t have any of the underwater pics yet, thanks to slow WiFi, but this will be the placeholder for where you can find them.
I decided to combine all of the Wakatobi posts into one, as there’s not a lot of different things that happen here from day to day. Basically, you get up early, eat breakfast, go on your two snorkel/dives, come back for lunch and have a small break, then go out again for another snorkel/dive. Rinse and repeat daily. Some various stories, which I will separate by color.
Bali -> Wakatobi Transfer Day
We got up a bit after 5 a.m. We had to be at the airport at 6:45. The woman who checked us in had assured us that there would be someone there that early, so when we walked out to the front gate and it was locked, as well as the front office, things didn’t look good. I was so nervous about missing our flight; it was the most expensive part of our trip and the flights only went out twice weekly. I tried ringing the front office doorbell to no avail, then got nervous and asked Sal to please call the emergency number to make sure they’d ordered a taksi as we’d already pre-paid. He got in touch with one of the ladies, who was surprised that there wasn’t anyone at the guest house. Us, too! Anyway, she said she’d call for the car. A few minutes later a car arrived, but it was the one they had ordered the day before. He was on time – I was just nervous 🙂 He was a very polite driver and we got there in record speed, with plenty of time to spend having breakfast in the lounge at the airport. I have to say Wakatobi does a good job of taking care of people at the airport – from tagging their luggage, helping them through security, checking in, etc., they are on top of their game.
We waited in a lounge that served breakfast and offered views of the planes. Soon our flight was ready, so they came and got us all and walked us to the gate. Our seats were way in the back, which I joked about, as I had wanted to cancel this portion of the trip when there were all these news articles about Mt. Agung getting ready to erupt. I was joking that I was being punished for trying to cancel. We had paid everything in advance, but both insurance and Wakatobi would not let us cancel with reimbursement unless the volcano erupted. If we hadn’t prepaid thousands we would have cancelled and just flown somewhere else as the flights are so cheap in this part of the world. The only good news was if the volcano did erupt while being on Bali, since it was the beginning of the mega trip, we could easily enough switch flights when the planes started running again without worrying about missing work. Having said that, it’s unsettling not really knowing what you’re getting yourself into. Nobody can truly predict when/if a volcano will erupt, the size or direction the ash cloud could go, etc. As a project manager I like to have everything planned for, but as I said in a previous post, there’s no real planning for volcanoes. Anyway, obviously we decided to stick with the original plan. I wasn’t happy that Wakatobi was so unaccommodating, though. It seems in these rare instances they should make an exception to their rules.
We chose Wakatobi because it was easy to get to from Bali (one flight, a short car ride and a short boat ride). Originally we were going to go to Raja Ampat with friends, but after seeing what it involved to get there (overnights, multiple flights, 5 hour boat rides) we decided to skip it. Once we got to the island we were greeted by one of the staff, who was going to show us to our bungalow. When he said the bungalow number, I was shocked. It was much further away than what I had requested months before. The second shock was that although you pay extra for having ocean access, you can’t snorkel in that part of the ocean according to their rules. To say I was disappointed was an understatement. I had this dream of walking from the front porch right into the ocean and immediately being able to snorkel, and that dream was crushed soon after getting on the island. If I had known the room would be where it was, I would have gotten the less expensive garden bungalow. We decided to check with the room concierge and see if we could switch. He told me they were all full up and that they even had repeat guests who wanted to come, but couldn’t because of the occupancy. Of course the first thing I thought of was one of those repeat guests certainly could have taken over my reservation when I wanted to cancel. It wouldn’t have been that big of a deal for them to refund me and keep their regulars happy; two birds with one stone and all that. For some reason that wasn’t a possibility, though. So after feeling upset for an hour I finally told myself there was nothing that was going to change and I just needed to accept it. And I did. It was just one of those things where you have you heart set on something you read about, and don’t realize until you get there that there was a bit of a switcheroo from what they promised on the site. Our room couldn’t even see the sunset because it was so far down and around the island. I promise, I did get over it, though.
The bungalows were nice, with a big front porch to hang out on, a hammock, and some chairs with an umbrella. The outdoor shower was pleasant – but just be careful when you shower as you could actually get a sunburn!
At 2:00 p.m. we checked in with the dive shop. We immediately discovered they had our information wrong, and for some reason had Sal down as a snorkeler. When they finally fixed (most) of it, we discovered they moved Sal to a different boat. This sort of stunk, because that meant that we would be separated. One of the snorkelers on my boat noticed they had made a mistake and had him listed as a private snorkeler when it was supposed to be his wife that was a private diver. They immediately fixed it and asked if it was ok that they weren’t on the same boat. They never even asked us, but the snorkeler and his wife were there for their *11th* stay, and one thing I definitely noticed was Wakatobi is very good to their repeat customers. It was another annoying part to the day, though, as I felt like they again said one thing before the trip and did another on the actual island. You do two 70 minute dive/snorkels a morning, and one in the afternoon/evening. This adds up to 3.5 hours. If you add into that travel time and time loading up the boat, you are talking another two hours probably. I know some of you have said you’d like some time away from your travel partners if you were on such an extended trip, but I knew I’d miss Sal. It’s just more fun when we can experience things together. For me, it was strange being alone on the boat at first, but I got over it. I’ll talk about that more next post.
Anyway, soon after Sal went and did his first dive, which was on the house reef. He really enjoyed it. I decided to wait to snorkel until the next day. All of the meals are buffet, however there is a good selection and you can always request things made special as long as they have the ingredients (hamburgers, pasta, eggs, etc.). That night we had some gin and tonics at the pier bar and Wakatobi was looking better.
Bali-Sanur (Bali Day 4)
These posts are about a week and a few days old as we had very little and slow WiFi in Indonesia.
On our transfer day between Ubud and Sanur, we decided to stop at the Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary. I suspected after a monkey incident last time we were in Thailand that maybe monkeys just weren’t my thing and I was a big chicken around them, and it proved to be true at the sanctuary.
On the ride to the sanctuary the driver talked about things the monkey’s steal. I had read about most of them (food, hanging items, etc.), so wasn’t surprised until he mentioned glasses. Of course it made me paranoid that the rascals would steal my new specs and run around looking like Sally Jessy Raphael or something. I mean, I have an extra pair of glasses, but still. My fears (well that one at least) were put to rest when the person at the ticket booth answered, “no” after I asked about it. I’m 84% sure she understood the question.
Full Day Tour (Bali Day 3)
After two relatively empty days to get over jet lag, we finally had a full day tour. Our host at the villa gave us a private tour, and it was really fantastic. He took us through more of the back ways to see more villages, even though it took longer, as opposed to using mostly larger roads. It was definitely more beautiful to see that way. We started out at 7:30.
Neeners Travels 