Final Thoughts - SE Asia Land Trip

Final Thoughts 

Wow, where to start summarizing this trip. Of course, everywhere was amazing and how do you choose just one favorite place or experience? Which is why we generally don’t choose favorites. How do you choose amongst giving rice to the monks in Luang Prabang at their morning alms, the friendliness of the people in Cambodia, seeing Orangutans & Proboscis monkeys & the Pygmy Bull elephant in the wild on Malaysian Borneo and seeing the Orangutans so close on Sumatra, the fun guides in Yogyakarta and Siem Reap and the general vibe of the place, trishaw rides in Hanoi and Jogja, getting blessed by a monk in Angkor Ban, the sites of Angkor Wat and Jogja, sites along the Mekong river, holding a rat at Apopo in Siem Reap, riding through villages by oxcart, taking a local boat through mangroves and driving through a wedding reception to get there and more.

A long trip like this is much like a world cruise and how do you choose just one place? We often value an experience over the actual place. Cambodia stood out because the people are just so friendly and nice. Laos was a highlight because we got to take part in the morning alms to the monks. The monk that wanted a selfie with us was fun. We’ll never forget the Orangutans & the funky monkey in Sumatra. So, no we can’t pick a favorite.

We learned much about traveling to so many places on a land trip vs a cruise. We will pack better for the next one. We hopefully learned what to leave at home next time and things that would have been good to have. We all agreed that we prefer cruising for the ease of travel, but there are some countries that cruises can’t get to and sometimes getting a more in-depth experience in certain countries is important. Our next long land trip will be to Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Bangladesh, and India.

I feel Jason at China Highlights did a great job of setting up the guides as they all showed up as expected and had the correct itineraries. Only 1 confusion when he used 2 different operators for different days which could have been eliminated if Jason had told us. I had a list of feedback for him in hopes that it will make our next trip more tailored to our style. Like the type of guides that we prefer, level of hotels, separate reservations so we aren’t booked like we are traveling like a family, but 2 separate couples and the same with hotel reservations. He also told us we didn’t need record locators for our flights and all we needed to do was show our passports. Most airports required proof of when we were leaving. Plus, we couldn’t choose our seats ahead of time. Just small details that would have made the trip smoother. Overall, we were very pleased with the trip.

The main reason I prefer to use Asia Highlights (a division of China Highlights & now Global Highlights) is that you can choose what you want to do, and it can be just your group. They do have stock tours if you don’t want to be hands on in the planning, but I prefer to create my own itinerary. When on cruises I do mostly private tours and set up the guides for the day. I could do that for the long land trips as well, but I feel they are better at finding the flights on all the various small airlines in countries where we aren’t familiar with the airlines that operate there.

Random observations: 

A better camera would be nice as mine doesn’t handle variable lighting well. Cell phones do a better job of that quite honestly. Might be better to upgrade my phone as it is older for one with a better camera.

Since we were traveling in kind of an off season, most of the tourists were not Western. We went weeks without seeing other “white people”. We didn’t really notice until we saw a couple ordering pizza at a stand that was probably from the States.

Sometimes English has some interesting meanings to the staff. Greg ordered 2 eggs scrambled and got 1 egg scrambled on one side of his plate and the other on the other side of the plate with a big swirl of ketchup between them. Guess they figure all Americans put ketchup on everything.

At the same restaurant I ordered an omelet. She asked if I wanted one omelet or two. I said one. It was a tiny 1 egg omelet. So, the next day I ordered two. It came with one small omelet on one side of the plate and the second on the other. Too cute. I guess egg and omelet are synonymous to them.

Fellow tourists are also amusing at times. At one breakfast buffet in Bali a man walks up to the chef making the eggs and he acts like they don’t speak English on Bali. He points to the eggs, holds up 2 fingers and then makes a whisking movement with one hand. The chef responds by asking “would you like two scrambled eggs?” (in perfect English)

It was a long trip, and we are lucky that Tom & Cathy are still speaking to us. Honestly, we had an amazing trip!

I can say my shoulder surgery made the trip possible. It was strong and caused no issues! 

Our next trip is an Eastern European Capitals Viking River cruise in July & August. 

Bird summary: We saw 227 species of birds. 45 were new to add to our Life List. 

New birds: 

Chinese Pond-Heron

Greater Coucal

Asian Palm Swift

Common Tailorbird

White-winged Tern

Streak-eared Bulbul

Malaysian Pied-Fantail

Asian Openbill

Chestnut-headed Bee-eater

Black Baza

Square-tailed Drongo-Cuckoo

Ashy Tailorbird

Storm's Stork

White-nest Swiftlet

Plume-toed Swiftlet

Indian Cuckoo

Plaintive Cuckoo

Little Green-Pigeon

White-crowned Shama

Wrinkled Hornbill

Wreathed Hornbill

Rhinoceros Hornbill

Blue-eared Kingfisher

Chinese Egret

Slender-billed Crow

Black-and-red Broadbill

Bushy-crested Hornbill

Jerdon's Baza

Black Magpie

White-headed Munia

Javan Kingfisher

Cave Swiftlet

Javan Munia

Little Pied Flycatcher

Fulvous-chested Jungle Flycatcher

Sunda Warbler

Rusty-breasted Whistler

Golden-headed Cisticola

Black-throated Laughingthrush

Crescent-chested Babbler

Olive-backed Tailorbird

Chestnut-breasted Malkoha

Black-naped Fruit-Dove

Gray-cheeked Green-Pigeon

Green Junglefowl

Videos will take a bit of time, but as I get them done, I'll include them in my Google Albums.

Thanks for following along on our most recent journey! We added 2 new countries on this one to total 95.

Uluwtu Temple & Kecak Dance & Jimbaran Bay Dinner - Bali

April 22 - 24

Our tour didn’t start until 2:00 so we had some free time to walk along the beach and hang out at the pool before lunch. 

photos around the hotel

where we had lunch

looks the same as last night's food, but these were gyros - one would have been enough

mirror image but showing the weird gap between the mirror in the back and on the side wall

shower pictures

musicians as we were checking out

At checkout, the front desk gave us a couple of bags from their gift shop as an apology. Our crappy room aside, the staff were amazing from check in, service in restaurants and check out. The hotel in a better room would be a lovely holiday for those wanting to relax on vacation.  

Today we traveled to the southern-most tip of Bali to visit the famous Uluwatu Temple. One of seven sea temples that are said to form a ‘chain’ around the island. Perched approximately 70 meters above sea level atop a steep cliff, the temple also has one of the most dramatic locations on the island and is the perfect vantage point from which to observe the huge waves as they roll in from the Indian Ocean and crash against the rock face below. 

The macaque monkeys at Uluwatu Temple are not friendly like the ones we encountered in the Monkey Forest in Ubud, but rather mischievous. Emon made sure we didn’t wear sunglasses, caps, have any food in our bags that we would hold close to us and in general be careful about cameras especially cell phones. 

He said there are handlers there that have trained them with a reward if they are given 3 snacks. Of course, they have to be around when the monkey takes off with your stuff. If they aren’t given the snacks fast enough, they break the item. We watched one break a pair of sunglasses. They entertained us while we waited for Emon to pick up our tickets to the performance that he had purchased ahead of time. 

they seemed to only take pink sunglasses - ha ha

this one got a sandal

trying to bribe the monkey to get the sandal back

the bribe didn't work and he's chasing after the monkey (notice he's missing his other sandal) - the handlers have good luck getting items back, but this was a tourist

this one took a cell phone - and they got it back from him

this one got a bandana

you can figure this one out

pink IS my color

The highlight was watching the traditional display of Kecak dance, which is regularly performed at Uluwatu. The Kecak dance features up to a hundred male performers who form a circle and sway and chant to hypnotic music. 

This ritual dance is based on an ancient story from the great Hindu epic, the Ramayana. King Rahwana captures Sita, the wife of Rama and the drama depicts the battle between King Rahwana and the monkey god, Hanuman. 

Emon showed us the best place to sit and be able to get out quickly, so we didn’t encounter hours of traffic to leave. All the way up at the top next to the exit. It really was the only way to see the performance as a whole without heads in the photos. Since we were in the back we could stand up. He was right we were able to leave without getting caught up in a crowd. I took video and will add them to my Google Photo Albums.

introducing the performance

they are arriving from the back

finale

Tonight’s included dinner was at Jimbaran Bay which has a reputation for having some of the best seafood restaurants on the island. Emon warned us that despite all the complaints about the food, the company won’t change. We figured it would still be good enough. Yikes! Worst meal of the trip hands down. It looked like a rather huge plate of seafood, however the crab had zero meat (no crackers or picks were included not that it would have yielded more than a thumb-sized piece of claw meat. The fish was all bone. There were 3 shrimp that were edible, and I ate my calamari rings and Cathy’s. I gave my clams to Greg. (only 2 of them anyway) We filled up with rice. Dessert came and it was 3 small slices per person. The menu listed some great sounding desserts, and we were willing to pay extra to get some. We were told they were out of all of them. Ah well. The setting could have been nice except our table was right next to the photo op heart and that was where the staff took their smoke breaks. Emon said he will stress again that no one likes this place. (I also let Jason at AH know we would have paid to eat at a nicer place on the beach) Emon said he could have taken us to a very nice one.

Aroma Restaurant

the smoke break heart

We hoped we had gotten back to the hotel before the gelato place was closed, but we didn’t. Not our night for food. 

Since this was our last night here, we got packed and ready for departure tomorrow.

For larger photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/xMoyGaXdHfwTeMiu8

Travel Home - Bali to Taiwan to San Francisco to Orlando - April 23 & 24

April 23 

We had some free time today since our flight didn’t depart until 3:40 in the afternoon. We walked the length of the boardwalk along the ocean and had lunch and gelato. 

at the airport saying goodbye to Emon & Batu

Batu, our driver

Emon asked for a hug before we left. It felt like we were leaving an old friend. He's a bright energetic young man and has a bright future ahead of him. 

We got to Taiwan at 11:30p and on to San Francisco at 8:00 the next night where we spent the night at the Aloft San Francisco Airport Hotel. (The time change was killer) 

April 24

We departed SFO at 8:00 the next morning and arrived back in Orlando at 4:40 in the afternoon. We picked up the rental car for the drive home and stopped for dinner and the grocery store before going all the way home. Phew!

magnets

My last post will be my final thoughts on the 6-week trip.

After our return I was curious about a couple of things on Bali. I thought I'd share in case you were wondering as well.

I was curious about the temples and umbrellas.  On Bali they call it "Tedung". The literal meaning of Tedung is 'to guard', as these ceremonial umbrellas symbolize protection. They are also said to symbolize a mountain, whose protective shade covers the land and people. The mountain being the pinnacle of spirituality as the abode of the Gods.

We also noticed that their statues wear cloths, and many are black and white. The Balinese believe in mutual dualism, comparable to yin and yang, they believe that there is no joy without sorrow, no night without day. They understand that there will always be good and bad in the world and in everyone. Their goal is to make efforts for the sake of balance and happiness for all of us. Saput poleng is the name for the black and the white spiritual cloths. Sometimes the wrappings mark where spirits reside when on a religious statue or tree. Emon said it also makes them seem more human.