Hong Kong

    We arrived in Hong Kong after a two day delay due to Airplane malfunction. We were set up in a 5 star Bali hotel for the night and the next day we were to be at the airport  to leave at 8 PM. It was quite an ordeal because we left Bali about 1 AM so we lost two days in Hong Kong.

    We arrived in Hong Kong around 6 AM with the overnight flight and very little sleep. They did bus us to the center of Kowloon but we had to then get to our hotel so with the help of an English speaking hotel person he was able to tell the taxi driver where to take us.

    I was really amazed that most of the people on the street and in the retail establishments do not speak english. It became important to me when I found myself lost for about 1 1/2 hours on the busiest street in Hong Kong and could not find a person who could speak english to get directions from. After 3 months together Bob and I found it imperative that we go separate ways for awhile so I went off on my way. It was not the best of days to do this as we had very little sleep for two days with the airport snafu and so had very little patience as well. (I did know where I was just on the opposite side of the street and there was no sign on that side for my street, I was a little slow figuring that out)

    We set up a tour to the Northwest Territories for the following day and that was very nice as I like the country side especially after the packed streets of Hong Kong.

    We then had to prepare to leave Hong Kong so Bob took off to some Temples to take photo’s and I rested knowing full well it would be a long day.

    The great thing we liked about Hong Kong is their subway system, ferries, double decker buses and subway under the harbor. Those were great but since our visit in ’96 they put in a new airport which is far away from the city so they put in a train system to take you to the airport. You can pick up a free shuttle to take you to the train station and at the station you can check in to your airline, get rid of the bags and proceed on to the train for a 23 minute ride or go back out to do more shopping. What a great idea and very modern, clean, comfortable train to a big airport.

 After using all my energy with the crushing crowded sidewalks and not enough sleep it made me want to go home so I was ready for this 3 months to end, at least for a week or so.

Hong Kong

Mary at a Hong Kong temple

Bob at a narrow village ally near Hong Kong

Riding the double-decker street car

Many Faces of Bali

    Bali has many faces but the first one that you see are the many, many motor bikes zipping in and out of the traffic with up to 5 people on each bike. You are allowed to travel with up to 5 and only the adults are required to wear a helmet.

    The roads are very narrow and not well paved with no shoulder so that when the motor bikes come dancing around they find any piece of space and create their own bike path weaving in and out in precarious places with seeming little or no fear of being hit by the very very close traffic. This is the place to hire a car, driver &  guide. For $55 per day you can have  someone else deal with the “crazy” tight streets and endless traffic. We had a little map to follow with our guide and we never really knew where we were, just the vicinity.

    Yesterday we went to the mountain rice fields to view and take pictures. The sun was shining when we left our hotel but as we ventured up the mountain area it started to rain and we wanted to take pictures of all the terraced rice fields so we got out to walk and the driver parked on the side of the road, which means not quite in the middle of the road. When we tried to continue up the hill the road was slick with rain and he slide into the ditch. It was thundering and raining very hard and as the cars came up the road many people got out in the rain to try to help. After the third try with three different cars hitching to our bumper, we finally got back onto the road. The tourist police were the first to arrive and they were unable to pull us out but stayed until the “right” vehicle with good grip tires arrived to do the job with many people pushing as well. I think this is Bali, where people are open and willing to give service and help until the job is done.

    The next face of Bali that you see is the traditional dress and offerings to their God. We were very lucky to arrive in a week where the local Hindu and Balinese people were preparing for a religious celebration which takes place every 6 mo. This particular celebration will take place  on the 12th after we leave. It is a celebration to their God and is about good overcoming evil. They believe that there is evil in the world and they give offerings to the God so everyone is either making the baskets and putting together the offering and taking them to the appropriate temples or as in the cities many are too busy and buy the baskets and materials to put in them and make the offerings.

    We saw many Hindu people dressed in their traditional clothes for the few days before as they had also another celebration to do and they were taking their offerings to the family temple as well as the community temple. Every family has a family temple at their home and it always sits on the north east side of the house which is in relation to the highest mountain in NE of Bali, Mt Agung.

    There are many celebrations in Bali and so it is very costly to each family as these come up often. There is the tooth filling celebration which is done by the priest and since the cost is the same to do many than  just one many wait to do as a community or family. They trim off the incisors as they think of this as like the animal instinct. Cremation is also very expensive so it is acceptable to be buried, then every 5 years each village will have a mass cremation when the bones will be dug up and burned along with many in the village and the rest thrown into the river which will go then to the sea. It is a child's responsibility to take care of this when the parents are old and the child is now married and not a parents responsibility.

There are 5 types of celebrations in Bali.

1. To the God
2. For the priest
3. For human beings
4. For the ancestors 
5. For the Destroyer, like for cremation

    We usually buy art in the countries that we visit so we visited many artist shops looking for the “right” pieces. We purchased a traditional rice field painting. The artist was notified as to the price we were offering and could accept or negotiate with us through the dealer. Both the dealer and the artist needed money for the upcoming celebration and were willing to take less for their painting. Our male guide said after he married they say their life is over as the male takes on the duties of providing for all the celebrations that take place in a Hindu’s life, he must make money for them. The female, at least in the village, makes the baskets out of leaves like the palm tree or coconut leaf by cutting strips and putting them together so that the offerings can be put in the baskets and taken to the temples. They get on their motor bikes, dressed in their traditional dress and put their offerings in a traditional painted basket on the bike or, if walking, on their head and go on their way to the temples. There may be more than one temple they are taking them to as we saw the village temple, the family temple and the city temple. 

    On an ordinary day each morning they also give an offering for the day. It may be outside their business door, in their family temple, at their job or just about any place. The place that I got a massage had an offering on the concrete outside their door, the people selling tours at the beach had a raised small temple where I watched two different people giving their early morning offerings in two locations. This is how they start their day giving thanks.

    The day that I will remember is the early morning that we walked down a side street near our hotel looking for a place to have our clothes washed.  After settling with the laundry people we asked to take their picture then continued down further into the street life. People were friendly and were willing to let us take their picture and talk some, if they spoke  a little english. When someone asked where we were from and we said US they said Obama. We saw the area where they do Cock fighting. The Hindu believe that blood sacrifice is necessary so the blood of the cock is used. It is not legal but tucked away in back streets. We saw families dressed in their traditional garb for the upcoming celebrations and all taking their offerings to the temples and they were happy to have us take their pictures. They seemed happy to see us come into their back street life.

Pictures of Bali

This is actually a two way street!

First car attempt to pull us out

Getting her offerings out

Placing an offering

A place to buy decorations for the upcoming celebration

Saying a prayer when making an offering

Caring offerings to the temple

Being cleansed in holy water from a spring

A view from a restaurant in the middle of the rice fields 

Newly planted rice field

Rice fields are beautiful sculptures 

A worker from the rice field

Sailing

Ahoy from the Whitsunday’s!!

Made it back to Airlie Beach, Australia with the mates from the three day sailing trip. What a great time. The Derwitt Hunter is decked out for 18 people and we lucked out with only 9 of us on board. It was especially great. When we boarded the first thing they did was confiscate our shoes, as no shoes are allowed on deck.

The ship is a 64 year old tall wooden ship with 4 sails. We set sail when the wind was in our favor with all the mates on deck helping. (Well actually I was the historian taking the pictures-- someone has to do it.)

We started out with cloudy, rainy skies but after about a 3 hour sail to Hayman Island, where we snorkeled for the first time, no one cared as we were all going to be wet anyway. Bob and I prefer not a lot of sun so it was great for us. Despite the lack of sun it became an official vacation when Bob burned the top of his feet from not wearing shoes on deck and not applying any sun screen.

There were lots of fish to see including ‘Elvis’ a beautiful 2 1/2 foot pet fish that was easily called in up next to the boat. We snorkeled each day at different spots, one spot for the fish, one spot for the coral and we spent time on the whitest sandy beach, known by all in these parts. We all wore stinger suits for the jellyfish which we luckily did not see.

Bob slept on deck the last night and said it was his best sleep. It was rather warm below deck. The last morning we set sail to Black Island which was uninhabited and we had it all to ourselves for several hours where we saw Ospreys building their nests, beautiful beaches and interesting rock formations.

After lunch it was time to head back and bring this adventure to a close. The God’s were again with us with good winds and we were able to, once again, set sail back to Airlie Beach. Our captain said we were traveling at about 9 or 10 knots and that seemed fast to us letting us arrive early.  It was a great and peaceful time. Now it’s time to wash the clothes and get ready for Bali.

Our sailing ship

Raising the sails

Mary snorkeling

Beach beauty on the white sand

The skipper going to the crows nest

View from the crows nest

Sailing into the sunset

The Rain Forest

Cape Tribulation, Australia 

Muggy, muggy, muggy. That’s what the rain forest is like and we were there in the rainy season. In the three days we were there, there were several rain showers each day. We only got caught once in the showers but even without rain I was soaking wet after a 2 hour walk in the forest from the humidity. Our clothes never got dry and we were looking through the dirty clothes bag to find dry and somewhat clean clothes.

Of course it is lush green everywhere. We stayed at a very nice B&B that is on a exotic fruit farm. We had exotic fruit with our breakfast every morning, the most unusual was the ‘hairy man’s eye ball’ and was not as bad as it sounds. Our cabin was almost all windows which looked out into the rain forest but not enough of a breeze coming through. The cabin was ‘eco’ friendly and the electricity was solar powered, so no air conditioning, not even a fan and couldn’t even use our hair dryer. 

Mary and I talked about just getting in the car and driving around all day just to keep cool. But usually it was walks in the morning, naps in the afternoon and early to bed at night.

We did go on a night river boat ride to find crocodiles and other animals. It was the last night there and we had to put on wet clothes to go. We were saving one pair of dry clean clothes to leave on. The boat trip was great we saw some different animals and it was cool on the river and there was only a short shower.

When we left we put on our only clean dry clothes and as soon as we got in the car at 7:30 AM we turned on the A/C. Glad to be cool and dry..... but it was a great experience!   

Our cabin in the rain forest

Breakfast outside our room.

A big spider outside our room

Outback Camping

We spent 5 days camping in the outback in the center of Australia. It was a very interesting and a mostly enjoyable trip with lots of walks into the interior of the mountains  and around Uluru. We walked up Kings Canyon's "Heart Attack hill”--straight up on rocky terrain then walked for about 3 plus hours and most days did not get into camp until dark then fix dinner, eat, take showers (most days) and try to get to sleep. Wake up each day was before SUNRISE. We saw lots of sunrises and sunsets and they were extremely gorgeous. The sky was filled with stars at night and we slept all nights but one out in our swag (an Australian bedroll). The swag was comfortable except when it got cold because my sleeping bag was not very warm so I put on all my clothes and then it was OK.

Our best experience was when we went to see Craig an aborigine from the local area. He took us out in the bush and sat down brushed the sandy red ground and started drawing hieroglyphic symbols to tell the story of his aborigine belief in how his people and his clan, ‘the rainbow clan’, came to the area.

Most of our group swam most days but we chose to find places away from the group and just enjoy the quiet. One particular area was the Red Bank Gorge in the Western McDonnell Range. The Red Bank Gorge was one where you needed to swim back into to get to all the swimming holes. They say it was fantastic but we enjoyed just being..

We walked every day and the first 3 days were fairly strenuous  I thought I might lose some weight with all the walking and the camp food but don't think I lost that belly that I would like to.

When we got back to Alice Springs we decided to rent a car as it was less expensive to take in the sights of Alice Springs and also get to the airport. It was a good idea. We went to the Desert Park, the School of the Air and the Flying doctors. All of these really show  the Aussie ingenuity. 

We ate Emu, Camel, Kangaroo last night for dinner and it was all good--a good way to end our trip in the Red Center.

We bought some art aborigines  art, and mailed it backed to the states. It will be fun to unpack when we get home.

Me and the flies at Uluru

Sunset in the Red Center

Kings Canyon

Our aborigines story teller

Push starting our day

Early morning pack up

Mary at sunset

Kangaroo Island

We had a very busy time on Kangaroo Island, long days in a 4 wheel drive car on gravel, wash board roads, driving very fast, going from one site to another. It was very interesting and enjoyable but tiring. We saw many animals and some birds up close and personal. There were not large groups of Kangaroo's like I expected but many more wallabies groupings (wallabies are similar to kangaroo’s only smaller). The Kola bears were very cute but sleeping in the trees and not active when we saw them. Bob was able to get up close for all pictures as there are no predators here.

We had to cook, can you believe that. We had a small apartment with a full kitchen and they provided the makings for two breakfasts which we cooked. It was nice for a change. We still can not believe that they put instant coffee in the rooms.

We took an evening tour of the penguin nests. These are the smallest penguin’s in the world. They only come on shore at night, being small, they have predators waiting to snatch them. We could hear them outside our “apartment”. They come and nest under peoples houses and in their gardens in the evenings.

Mary and our guide outside our B&B

Melbourne

Melbourne

We arrived in Melbourne on Good Friday and spent the day walking and bussing around  the city to find most places closed. They close for Christmas, Good Friday and the monday after Easter as well as Easter--interesting. (They were surprised that the US did not do this as we are so “religious”.

They have a free bus and a free trolley that takes you around the downtown area to specified places and it was good as my legs were tired from the two previous days of walking. This is a beautiful city and it has developed along the river very well on both sides. We can no longer brag about Portland's Light rail transportation system. They are best in the world, it says. They have commuter trains, light rail, under ground trains, busses, trams or trolleys and don’t know if they have ferries. They have a beautiful old building which houses the commuter train system. I don't know how old but it is something to see.

We attempted to find the Melbourne’s  ALLEYS or alley lanes, as they are called, where they have developed small cafes and shops. Since it was good friday most were closed, but we happened onto one cafe that was packed to the hilt with no room. We had to look for a place to eat and we had our first eggs benedict on our trip and it was very good. (Both NZ & Au serve breakfast most of the day)

There is a lots of public art and the graffiti artists have taken over the alley lanes. Bob says it was a photographers dream with all the colors. 

We loved the mixture of old buildings and modern buildings. There was lots of iron work from the 1800’s and we walked the neighborhood one early morning to see them.

One of Melbourne’s highlights was the trip up to the 88th floor of the Eureka building at night to view the city lights. I had to hold onto Bob as the floors were not even giving additional unsteadiness to the experience. The building has many angles jutting out and it feels like you are standing out beyond the building. Those hearty souls went to a special area which had a glass floor that looks down 88 stories. Melbourne was beautiful at night as was Sydney.

Melbourne

The Tour Nazi

We took a tour from Melbourne to see what’s called the 12 Apostles, which are some unusual rock formations on the ocean coast about 120 miles away. It was a 12 hour tour, and should have been 14 hours. We got picked up at 7:30 am in a small bus and right away the driver John our tour guide started giving us information about Melbourne on the way out. After 2 hours he was still talking when we got to our first stop for a coffee/tea restroom break. He made it very clear you have 15 minutes be back at the bus on time. And when someone was a minute late he told in no uncertain terms that they were late and needed to be on time. 

Our next stop was a photo op that was so quick we might as well just rolled down the windows and taken the picture out the window. And later when we stopped to take pictures of the kolas bears several people were late and they got a lecture that we needed to be on time! (no restroom).

As we were driving along we looked at the lunch menu and told to take out a number that corresponded to a meal on the lunch menu. We were told when we got to the restaurant “Don’t go to the restroom. Don’t take pictures. Go directly to your assigned table and place your number on the table so we can get your order to you as soon as possible. Then you can go to the restroom.”

We were starting to get the picture, eat fast, follow orders, and don’t drink water, you might have to go to the restroom later!

When we finally got to the 12 Apostles, there were so many people we had to fight our way through them to get photos. We didn’t want to be late. I was practically running from place to place to take photos. We were so rushed I was thinking I hope the pictures come out because I’m so pushed for time I won’t remember this place. Well I did get some pictures and it’s a good thing because what I remember most is John our driver the ‘Tour Nazi’.

Mary at the twelve Apostles.

Bob at the twelve Apostles

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A THIEF

       We got off the tram thinking we were on our way to the Melbourne China town but ended up in the Melbourne Gaol (jail) instead. We were marched into the holding room, made to call the man sergeant, stand erect, put our tongues up to the roof of our mouths for check, lift our feet for check, leave our belongings and marched into small cells, closed the thick, heavy steel door, turn off the lights and let us sit. We knew we were in trouble now.

We were booked and mug shots taken and sent out for a new day of trial. Now we were truly ready for Chinese food and what a meal it was, not our last but a meal as a free woman and man.

The Gaol was built in 1858 and was closed in 1924. The Police Watch house where we were incarcerated was still active long after. The good news is that they, long ago, abolished capital punishment. This was a reminder of how cruel humans can be and questions how much we have really advanced.