It's more fun in The Philippines

Backtrack to the month I spent in The Philippines for Christmas and New Year's
December 2014-January 2015 

Merry Christmas!

Having decided to not go back home for the holidays (for the first time. Ever), Kristina and I chose to be in The Philippines. Two reasons: the population is mostly Christian (Catholic, actually) and we have former colleagues/friends who invited us to spend the holidays with them. This country starts prepping for and celebrating the holidays in September (no Halloween and Thanksgiving interference). They get very serious in their decorating and shopping, which I found out by staying at a hotel in Manila directly across from a mall (actually three big interconnected malls. very much like Jakarta. meh). The bonus of being in The Philippines was the potential for some awesome diving (yes, I'm still doing that).

My favorite public transport, the Jeepney

We spent a week hanging out in Manila. We did some site seeing, had fun riding around on the many forms of local transport and hung out with our awesome friends. It mainly reminded me of Jakarta.

In trying to be less homesick about missing our families, friends and the holidays, Kristina and I bought a tree and decorated our hotel room. Even though there was no snow, we made (no bake) cookies, drank hot chocolate and exchanged gifts.

At least there were really beautiful sunsets,
even though we couldn't dive.

From Manila, we headed south to Sablayan to begin our diving. The plan was to dive around the Apo Reef for a few days. Unfortunately, due to rough waters and weather conditions (*cough*typhoon) we were unable to get to the reef. After being stranded at the resort for longer than we had intended to stay, and still not having the chance to dive, we headed out to the next destination. In an attempt to steer clear of the previously mentioned storm (*cough*typhoon) which was going to the south western islands, over Palawan, we flew the the south eastern islands. There are more friends in this area, as well, so that was another bonus!

We made our way to an island called Malapascua, famous for its Thresher sharks. We found a great dive shop, stayed and dove with them for the better part of a week. We decided to leave there to our next destination as soon as we heard weather reports of another bout of bad weather (*cough*typhoon) coming directly for that area.

Thresher Cove Dive delivered. We saw the Threshers!

Chocolate Hills

We headed to Bohol, an island famous for its 'Chocolate Hills' and the Tarsier, the world's smallest primate. It was quite rainy for a couple of days, so we decided to poncho up and drive a motorbike to see the famed Chocolate Hills'. They weren't brown in color at the time we were there, but it's still pretty cool that they were formed by the sea in those shapes.

Bike zip line

On our way back, we stopped by an adventure park, where we did a bicycle zip line. I definitely didn't know that even existed. It was easy, (as long as I didn't look down), fun and offered the best view of the Hills.

Freediving. Looks a bit different than the full scuba gear.

Enough 'site seeing'. Let's go diving! So far, in meeting other scuba divers throughout my travels, I've heard enough mention freediving to make me curious. Alona Beach just happens to have a shop run by one of the current world record holders in freediving. If you don't know anything about freediving, it's basically diving down, headfirst, with only a weight belt, fins and mask (no air tank). I signed up for a course with an instructor to tell me about the basics of the sport as well as teach me a few of the techniques for holding my breath. The biggest challenge, for me, was how to best equalize ('pop') my ears as I swam down headfirst. I made it down to ten meters, but only once. I had to try it mostly out of curiosity. Some people do it for the challenge and others simply because there's more of a sense of freedom with less equipment and no air tank. I definitely crossed off professional freediver from the list of possible future careers, but it was fun to try something new.

Relaxed in my hammock and enjoyed the sunsets.

We moved on to our next destination called Apo Island (not the same as Apo Reef). The beach was tiny, but the weather was gorgeous, I had a shady spot to hang my hammock and there was plenty of diving to be had. Overall, a very small, relaxing place.

Not surprisingly, we heard again that another storm (seriously, that's the third, if you've been counting) was on its way. We headed back to Cebu City early, so that we could fly to Manila for our flight out of the country. We just happened to be there during the Sinulog Festival, a part of the Santo Niño celebration. This involved our, unintended,  participation in the street party as our friend showed us around the city.

Street Party fun!

As the streets became more crowded and the taxis were fewer by the hour, we realized it was time to get to the airport to catch our flight to Manila. To keep it easy, and not stand in the taxi queue for hours, we decided to walk the 10 km to the airport (that's a little over 6 miles). That may sound like a joke,  but we seriously followed the Google map directions, out of the busy city center on foot. Luckily, our bags were already left at the airport earlier in the day. We had all intentions of getting far enough away from the crowded area so that we could find an empty taxi, but we ended up walking nearly the entire way (things turned dicey at the end, and we got in a taxi for five minutes, because the Google maps kept leading us to walk through a military airbase, which apparently is around the airport. Needless to say the security guards didn't let us through to the airport). While we were having a great chat (with a San Miguel to toast) and enjoying our last evening in The Philippines, we even watched a few fireworks displays from the street and the bridge to the airport island.

Last, but certainly not least. We slept overnight in the Manila airport. In the morning, we were stuck with no taxis, a closed airport road into the city and all flights canceled/changed (we had gotten prior notice from the airline, so it didn't affect our plans or anything). This was totally worth it, as we got to wave to The Pope as he rode by in his Pope-mobile on his way to catch his flight out of the country.

No big deal. 

Unexpectedly saw The Pope drive by.
That has happened to everyone, right?

So, I left The Philippines with a blessing and plenty worth going back for, thanks to all of the changes in plans due to the rain (*cough*typhoons). There is still spelunking (caving) to do in Sagada in the north and plenty of unexplored dive sites throughout the entire country, just maybe in a different (not typhoon) season next time. 

Around the world and back again!

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia-Jakarta-Abu Dhabi-Chicago-HOME!-Minnesota-Milwaukee-Dubuque-WEDDING!-Madison-Chicago-San Jose-Monterey-Hong Kong-Jakarta-Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia-*sigh*

My RoadtrippinSoutheastAsia travels were briefly interrupted as I flew home for three weeks for Brittney's wedding in September. It was a short, but definitely sweet, trip! I had a fantastic time hanging out and catching up with my friends and family. I truly appreciated the time spent with my little sister and the chance to get to know my brother-in-law a little better. I think being the thousand-ish miles away has made my relationship with Britt even stronger, somehow. Some of my family even got together for a Brewer's game, since I requested some tailgating fun while I was home. I spent the week before the wedding with her, helping with anything that I could. Luckily, there were only two small hurdles that we overcame the day before the wedding (a missing tux and a bussle-less dress). I learned my lesson about writing my maid of honor toast on an index card...anyone who was at the reception knows that I couldn't read it through my teary eyes. The Monday after the wedding, we went to the apple orchard, so I of course made Brittney and Jason take a ridiculous picture with me.

Yee-haw!

 

This is the same spot on Hwy 1 that's in a Corona commercial.

On my way back to Asia, I thought it made sense to stop by California (since I was flying over anyway) to visit Julia, who is currently attending grad school there. I spent a long weekend salsa dancing, hiking, rock climbing, watching otters and sea cows in the bay, visiting the aquarium, and walking around beautiful Monterey.





I finally made it back to Asia, with a stop in Jakarta, to pick up my big backpack at a friend's apartment. I met up with Kristina and Nicole in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. They had been in Siem Reap, Cambodia for the majority of my time at home (the site of the famous Angkor Wat). After a couple of days for me to get over my jet lag, we headed west to the island of Penang. This is a place we had already been in March 2012, during a short school holiday. We had plenty more time to explore the island and Georgetown (the area where we stayed). We walked around to find the street art, got acupuncture on my knees, visited a mosque, hiked up Penang Hill, visited Fort Cornwallis and even took a hike in the State Park during a torrential downpour. 

Being non-Muslim tourists, we were required to cover our heads.

It didn't hurt, but it was strange to watch needles in my skin.

Having fun with some of the Penang street art.

We went back to the Cameron Highlands to go hiking, eat delicious Indian food and pick strawberries. Once again, this is a place we had been before, but we were returning for further exploration. 

Raffelesia flower in bloom. So huge!

The bamboo on the right of the picture is the bridge we crossed.

We went to another island called Langkawi, where we met Kristina's cousin for a few days. This was a beach stop where I could "top up" my tan, after my time back home. There's only so much sun my body could take, though, so we spent a couple of days on motorbikes, driving around the island and finding waterfalls. This was also my first encounter with a single leech. Little did I realize, it was only the beginning...

That's just one leech on the bottom of my foot.

Enjoying a Langkawi sunset.

Having fun in a temple.

Natural waterslide!

 After Langkawi, and the reason I mentioned the leeches, is that we next took a bus (or two) to the National Park, called Teman Negara. We were warned about the leeches, but I actually am traveling with only hiking sandals. I have no close-toed shoes of any kind. I figured that I would just have to tough it out with the leeches. Luckily I thought to rubber band the bottoms of my pant legs, so as to stop the leeches from crawling up my pants. I'm not kidding. One did make its way to my neck, but Kristina caught it before it started eating. I definitely fed them plenty well! We signed up for a three day/two night trek with our guesthouse, and by the time we left the next morning, there was a total of thirteen in our group with two guides as well. After the first day of hiking, I had counted fifteen leeches just on my right foot. I stopped counting after that, and I really just tried to ignore any that were on my feet as I walked. If I didn't notice a leech in time before it dug its teeth in, then I either had to pull it out (which apparently could leave its teeth in me) or just wait until it was full in about 30-40 minutes. I usually chose the latter, until I noticed some were just being very greedy and got disgustingly big on my feet. Unfortunately, now a week later, as the "wounds"heal, they are extremely itchy (which is what our guide warned us about as we pulled the leeches out). Anyways, a picture is worth a thousand words, so have a look for yourself.

Beginning of Day 1. World's longest canopy walkway.

End of Day 1: So many leeches!

Our bloody feet after I pulled out some of the leeches and let others finish eating.

Day 2: Leech bite protection. I was afraid all of the bites would bleed as I walked.

Now, the leech bites are healing, and we've spent the past week-ish in Kuala Lumpur. A fantastic city full of free museums, free heritage walks around the city, and a great variety of public transportation (and one of the bus lines is even free). Next we're headed to Malecca, a city in Malaysia that's full of even more history of the country!

I Will Go The Distance

Let the (official) 'Road Trippin Southeast Asia' adventures begin! If you haven't realized, at this point, I've already been traveling for four months, including a trip home and back, so here goes.

My travels have been absolutely fantastic since June! I  finally left Indonesia in mid-August after a 30-day tourist visa, and then a 30-day extension. Don't worry,  I'll be back. We still plan to go to Papua and dive in Raja Ampat.

We swam with stingless jellyfish in Derawan.

Mt Rinjani. Looks harmless in the beginning.

Summit domination! It was cold and rainy.

The volcano is behind me in the picture, slightly smoking.
This is on the way down from the summit (that's why I look so happy).

The porters carried all of the supplies up and down. Water, food, tents, etc for our three day trek.

We got Advanced open water scuba certified at an amazing island called Gili Air.

Now I can dive as deep as 30 metres...that's nearly 100 feet!

We drove motorbikes around, basically, the entire island of Bali (on two separate occasions), got lost, got a better map and only used phone GPS when it was getting dark. Along the way, I saw beautiful scenery, carved a wooden turtle and even got blessed at Ulu Watu.

We returned to Flores, an island in Indonesia. We dove from a live aboard boat around Komodo National Park where we saw huge manta rays (sorry no pictures because my underwater camera case is broken) and my arm was stung by fire coral. We even drove to a waterfall and spent a few days at my favourite beach in Indonesia.

We rode in a huge passenger ship known as the Pelni, to get from Flores to Sulawesi (still both islands in Indonesia). Thanks to Kristina finding the deserted female clinic, we had a great place to sleep during the 14-hour journey.

Jumping off a rock near a waterfall in Flores.

The second captain let me "drive" the Pelni. Such a huge ship!

Some of the most spectacular sunsets I've seen yet!

Worth it!
We watched the majestic manta rays for at least ten minutes.

It looked worse at it was healing. Vinegar was the best medicine.

We saw a bunch (upwards in the hundreds, maybe even in the thousands) of pigs and water buffalo about to be killed at two elaborate funeral ceremonies in Tana Toraja, an area in southern Sulawesi. I actually watched a man kill two pigs and skin them, and also I watched one buffalo get killed. I was legitimately very sad afterward, no joke. This is not a tradition I can even begin to understand, but to each his own.

The Torajan people believe that a good afterlife is guaranteed for the beloved
family member based on how elaborate the funeral ceremony is.

It takes months to build the traditional Torajan rice houses and area for the funeral.

We stayed (hungout, read, napped, snorkeled) on another beautiful island in The Togeans. We also dove a World War II bomber plane that crashed in the 1940's.

A relaxing island in the Togean Islands.

We dove again in Bunaken, a different island in northern Sulawesi and saw loads of turtles and beautiful coral walls. A guy who dove with us had a go-pro, so he recorded and edited a wonderful underwater video of our dive (it's on Facebook).

The Mangroves outside of our guesthouse on Bunaken.

For the two weeks, I stayed in Malaysia at a yoga retreat center. My friend and I did this program (from a website) called "workaway", which means we worked at this place (pulling weeds, making a floor tile mosaic, painting, planting, learning to make sourdough bread from scratch, etc) in exchange for a free place to stay and eat.

Yoga twice a day. This is the meditation chant.

The perfect lime!

Sourdough bread chef.

Pulling weeds was such fulfilling work, even though it took us nearly two weeks to finish.

 All in all, the first four months of travel have been amazing!

Smack That...Mosquito!

As some of you may have heard (from my worried family), I was quite sick for a couple of weeks at the end of May. It all started with a simple headache and ended with four trips to the doctor for blood tests. Spoiler alert: the following story contains a LOT of sleeping, a little eating, and a few (technically, four) doctors visits.

Day 1: On Monday night, 12 May, I had a bad headache after working out after work. I drank a bunch of water and ate dinner, since those are usually the only reasons I ever have a headache. I also noticed that I had gotten VERY tired simply carrying my laundry downstairs to the laundry place. That’s not normal, but I thought maybe my work out had worn me out, which made me feel pathetic.

Day 2: I went to work the next day (because Tuesdays are my fullest days for teaching, so I didn’t want other teachers to be stuck with my crazy schedule), but I didn’t feel up to driving my motorbike. I only lasted teaching from 7.30 until 9.00. At that point, I was so exhausted, and just really not with it, that I told someone to take over for me so that I could go home. I got home from work and slept for the rest of the day until Wednesday morning. Did I mention I also had a fever and body aches at this point? I didn’t even consider leaving my apartment to eat or go to the doctor.

Day 3: Once again, I woke up to email my boss and give her a very simple explanation of what students should be working on in my classes for the day. Then, I went back to sleep until Wednesday evening. At that point, my roommate was home from work and concerned. I asked Kristina to accompany me to the doctor. I didn’t trust that I was physically strong enough to walk from my apartment, ride the elevator down and continue walking another hundred yards to the clinic nearest my apartment. As per usual, here in Jakarta, the doctor prescribed me an antibiotic and medicine to help with the fever and body aches…even though she didn’t actually diagnose me. She recommended I get a blood test, but they don’t do that at the clinic. I’m sure Kristina “forced” me to eat something for dinner, and then I went back to sleep.

Day 4: Holiday! No School! Kristina accompanied me to the S.O.S. International Clinic that she had heard about. At least there I was certain they would speak English. I didn’t have to wait very long until I was telling the doctor about all of my symptoms. He sent me to the lab for a long list of blood tests, and then I waited about an hour for the results. And, by waited, I mean I basically fell asleep in the chair outside the doctor’s office. My lab results showed that they had tested for thirteen different possibilities, and I had…Dengue Fever! This is a virus spread by mosquitoes, and there was nothing I could do or take to get better. The only way was to rest and wait it out until my blood platelet count was back to normal. At that point it was about half as much as it normally should be. No wonder I felt weak and needed to constantly sleep.

Days 5-8: These are mostly still a blur of a lot of sleeping and three more visits to the doctor. I had a mild form of Dengue, which is lucky for me, because the harsher virus sometimes requires a hospital stay. The blood tests showed that even though my platelet count wasn’t sky rocketing, it wasn’t getting worse. The doctor had written me a medical certificate (the paperwork required so I would still get paid even though I was missing a week of work). The blood test at the doctor on day 8 showed that my platelet count was still really low, but it had gotten a little better since previous tests.

Day 9: The doctor had written my medical certificate for one week, so I attempted to go back to work on Tuesday. This time I lasted my four-hour teaching block right away in the morning, from 7.30-11.30. I went home after that, but I only missed teaching my fourth grade class for thirty minutes. That had definitely been overdoing it for the day, and I slept as soon as I got home until Wednesday morning.

Days 10-11: More sleeping, but at this point I could stay awake for a few hours throughout the day, and I was forcing myself to eat at least two meals each day. Kristina kept me well stocked with sandwiches and take-out. Day 11 included my last doctor visit where I found out my platelet count was back to normal. Yippee! I had lost about five pounds, and I was still not back to 100%, but I felt immensely better than I had in about ten days. The doctor told me that my immune system wasn’t as strong as before, so I should be more careful about germs and getting sick.

Day 12: I was back to work, and feeling good. My students and colleagues were happy to have me back, and I was glad to be out of my apartment. The students hadn’t gotten too far behind, since they had mostly been doing revision papers to prepare for upcoming exams.

The Dengue couldn’t hold me back for too long. By 25 May, Kristina and I were running a 5k race. Not just any race, but the Jakarta Wine and Cheese Run! I was really slow and tired (which was to be expected, considering I had done little to no physical activity for almost two weeks) but I finished the race!

Yes, that says #cheesehead

And, now it’s mid-June. I’m feeling back to 100% and powering through these last few days of work. The students finished exams last Friday, we went over their tests on Monday, and we’ve been preparing report cards Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday is a prize-giving ceremony and class party, and Friday is the parent-teacher conference for parents to collect the report cards.

And, then it’s off the Kaliman to swim and snorkel with stingless jellyfishes. Then to Lombok to climb Mt Rinjani. Then, gallivanting around Indonesia until I come home in September for Britt and Jason’s wedding. The plan, as of now, is to go to Flores and Sulawesi before I leave and then Papua when I get back. That’s not the end, or even close, but it’s too much to write, at the moment, and who knows how much plans will change once we start traveling.

When I'm in Indonesia, I'll still have my same phone number. I'll also get wi-fi in most big cities I am in, so there will be some (maybe infrequent and inconsistent) checking of emails and facebook. I won't be totally off the grid, but just enough. I'll try to post a new blog every so often, so that you don't have to worry too much. 

Take My Tentacle

The diesel power station that was washed ashore.

Yes, this house has a boat on top of it...

Recently, I was lucky enough to have Good Friday as a holiday. Kristina and I took advantage of that long weekend by getting our dive count up to nineteen total dives! We stayed in Indonesia, but on Pulau Weh, a small island off the northern coast of Sumatra. We flew late Thursday night into Banda Aceh (pronounced Bond-ah Otch-ay) so that we could take the early Friday morning ferry to Pulau Weh. Banda Aceh was a place that I had remembered from when I was a senior in high school (December 2004). My science teacher at the time showed us a before and after aerial photo of Banda Aceh after a huge tsunami hit the area (which was caused by an earthquake in the Indian Ocean of magnitude 9.1-9.3, the third largest ever recorded). There is now a tsunami museum that we visited, a diesel power station that was brought in shore about 4 kilometers via the tsunami (and not moved back to the water) with a tsunami education park built around it, and even a house that has a boat on top of it, which now serves as a tourist spot and memorial. According to the city tourist map that was given to me, the tsunami destroyed almost 60% of the city with approximately 75,000 victims. Walking through that museum was very depressing, but it was amazing to see all of the help that was sent after the disaster. 

Here's a little history lesson for you, thanks to Wikipedia J Relative to most of Indonesia, Aceh is a religiously conservative area. It has the highest proportion of Muslims in Indonesia, who mostly live according to Sharia customs and laws. I believe this law became even stricter after the earthquake/tsunami. Aceh was the closest point of land to the epicenter of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, which devastated much of the western coast of the province. Approximately 170,000 Indonesians were killed or went missing in the disaster. The disaster helped precipitate the peace agreement between the government of Indonesia and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM). The region has wanted to gain independence from Indonesia for quite some time.

Okay, enough serious sad talk. That was a very interesting part of the trip, but the reason we were there was to dive! We set up our dives and accommodation with a dive shop called Lumba Lumba (which means ‘dolphin’ in Indonesian). The dive shop was set up differently that others we had been to, as it seemed to cater to more experienced divers. This made me nervous at first, because we are definitely not in that category, but everyone was helpful as long as we asked. We even talked to some of the dive masters and got advice about options to become Advanced Open Water certified, and really just becoming better at diving so that it’s even more enjoyable.

The motorbike with sidecar that took us to the dive center.

Under the sea for four dives, each lasted about one hour…

1. We saw two octopuses (is that the plural?) for the first time. The best part about it is that one was dragging the other along by the tentacle as they both kept changing crazy awesome colors and patterns. Apparently, as our guide shared with us when we got back to the boat, they were mating! I think we watched them for at least ten minutes, which is a long time, considering we’re only underwater a total of sixty minutes each dive.

2. We swam against some of the strongest current that we’ve experienced yet. We even had to hold on to pieces of rock and coral on the bottom just to make sure the current didn’t make us drift away from our guide.

3. I learned that it’s a “tradition” to get naked underwater during your 100^th dive, which is typically done by men, and not necessarily by women, due to the logistics of the task (this was just a story the dive masters told us; it was not something that we had to witness underwater).

4. I’m going to need to invest in a dive computer (basically a fancy watch to wear while diving that keeps track of a bunch of important information about each dive you do, including your depth and rate of descent/ascent, so as to avoid decompression sickness).

5. Diving is still totally amazing, and I want to go on to the next “level” so that I can dive deeper and get a certificate/specialization in some areas to make me a better diver (buoyancy control, deep diving, night diving, underwater photography, identification of plants and animals…are just some of the options).

Believe it or not, I only have six weeks left in Jakarta! And that means only two more weeks of teaching, one week of revision for the students, two weeks for student testing, and the last week for preparing report cards (and getting ready to leave)! 

Time flies when you’re having fun!

That's me 15 meters (50 feet) underwater!

Underwater selfie!

Eel

Can you spot the Lion Fish? It looks like it has a mane.