Category Archives: Hiking

Bali, Indonesia – More from Sanur

Flashpacking, Hiking, Indonesia, Travel, , ,

8/25 – Every day we walk a little farther down the beach, past the tourists and the big hotels.  Lots of activity on the water. Flat water in Sanur Bay:

    
  

Surfing where the reef doesn’t block the waves:  Lots of pretty kites:

   

A good place to pray: 

 
You can get married in a big blue diamond here: 

 

Plenty of shopping opportunities: 

    
  

  
Does Emma need another tutu?

 

This is a good idea, don’t you think?  

One day, we discovered a deserted temple way past the tourist area, with some pretty scary guardians:

    
 

We watched young girls practice Balinese dancing at a temple. 

    
 

Where to next? 

 

Bali, Indonesia – Sanur

Flashpacking, Hiking, Indonesia, Travel, , ,

8/21 – We’ve fallen into a daily routine of walking along the Sanur beach in the mornings, stopping for a coffee, choosing a place for an Indonesian lunch (fried rice or noodles with vegetables, chicken or seafood, always served with a fried egg on top, or satay – chicken grilled on a skewer with peanut sauce), then swimming in the afternoon.   

 

The beach walk is alternatingly sunny and shady, and lined with shops selling all manner of tourist trinkets and services – wood carvings and masks, batik cloth, bamboo wind chimes, massage, parasailing, pedicures, fruity drinks.  

   
    
   

One of Jim’s favorite pastimes is engaging the touts who call to us at every turn (Sarong, Madame? Massage, Madame? Look in my shop?  Tour today?  Transport tomorrow?). We’ve noted that the tour sellers seem to adopt western names (like telemarketers), and all the names start with ‘A’.  So far, we’ve met Aron, Adam, Artur, Anna and Angelo.  Poor Angelo drew a blank and took a while to come up with his name when Jim asked him what it was.

One day we watched a funeral cremation ceremony.  The procession started at the home of the deceased and ended at a big plaza near the beach, where the body was lit with propane in a big bonfire.  The participants wore traditional dress – sarong and head scarf for the men, fancy lace tops and long skirts for the women. 

   

Another day we heard chanting, and followed the sound to the site of a wedding ceremony that included the ritual of the bride and groom having their eye teeth filed down to curb their human desire to be gluttonous or boastful.  I would have liked to see this, but we did not try to enter the place of the ceremony.  There are many ceremonies here that are unique to Bali culture.

   

Things we saw walking along the beach:  

   

  Hindu Bali is a good place to be a cow!  
    

Chess, anyone?  
 

More from Sanur soon!

Taman Negara, Malaysia – Move to Kuala Tahan

Flashpacking, Hiking, Malaysia, Travel, , , ,

   
   
8/3 – This morning we bade farewell to Nusa Village, and moved to a bungalow in Kuala Tahan.  Here we have a window, wifi, a kettle, coffee, air con, and hot shower  – a wealth of riches for about $17 a night – less than half the price we were paying at Nusa.  Plus, we have our choice of any restaurant in town!  Here’s our yummy lunch – there’s nothing shrimpy about these prawns! 

 
While we were eating lunch, the local school let out, and we watched as the children lined up to buy snacks.  Sugary soda was the number one choice, followed by French fries – I guess kids are the same everywhere! 

 
Cutest kids ever: 

 
Durian puffs, anyone?  They were pretty smelly… 

 When we got back from our hike today, Jim pulled off his boot to find his sock drenched with blood, issuing from a hole on the top of his instep, right at the vein. He felt no pain, and didn’t recall getting bit by anything. We washed it and dressed it, but it continued to bleed. The only thing I know that causes non-stop bleeding like this is leeches, but we couldn’t fathom how one could get under Jim’s boot and sock. A bandaid and pressure stopped the bleeding eventually. Very strange.

8/4 – Today was our last trekking day, and we hit the jackpot for wildlife. Early in the morning we spied a tiny moss deer, about the size of a rabbit. See the reflection of its eyes?      

Shortly after, some Dutch travelers pointed out a flying lizard resting on the trunk of a tree.   

Look close to see the feet and tail of a lizard  – his reflexes were quicker than my camera.  He was about a foot long. 

 We climbed into a hide – an elevated platform from which we could observe a meadow below, and watched a wild boar come out to graze, and a brown squirrel caper in the branches.    

As we walked back, we spied a family of monkeys feasting on jackfruit, high in a tree. We’ve come to understand that telling a Malaysian you want to see a monkey is like telling a New Yorker that you want to see a rat…  Oh well, I still think they’re cute.  Can you see the baby clinging onto the mother? 

   

  

Here’s another pretty big tree: 

 It rains mightily every night, and today we found that some of our floating restaurants had floated away!  Jim had to take off his boots and wade out to the place that sells the tickets for our bus ride back to KL tomorrow. 

   

When we got back to our bungalow, it was my turn to take off my boot and find a sock soaked with blood.  I had not felt anything crawl on my foot, but had the same leech-like round hole on my instep that Jim had yesterday.  How curious!

Taman Negara, Malaysia – the Canopy Walk And Elephant Poop

Flashpacking, Hiking, Malaysia, Travel,

8/1 – Today we decided to do the canopy walk – a steep climb up for an opportunity to view the rain forest from another perspective.  

   
 There were lots of tour groups here, with guides lighting bits of tree bark on fire so their groups could smell sandalwood and sassafras.  Don’t we look eager to start?

  

The bridge looked sturdy enough…  

 We ascended to the suspended walkway, with cameras in hand. We soon discovered that both hands were needed to keep ourselves upright on the narrow walkway that swayed with every step. 

    

We were able to regroup at a rest station built around a big tree, and stowed our cameras away.  Here are some views of the jungle below.

   

There were half a dozen long walks before a final ladder that took us back down.  We were told that the walk used to be longer, but some sections were closed for safety.  It was long enough for me!

  

A look up at the folks who were behind us:

 

We didn’t see any exotic wildlife today, but a German hiker showed us a pic he took of a huge tapir that was sleeping on the porch of his resort. (There is a very posh resort here for rich folks – a meal at their restaurant costs more than our lodging!). A Google search showed dozens of similar pix – evidently, the tapir is a regular visitor to the resort!  

 

8/2 – This morning we did not take the boat to the park. Instead, we set out on a hike suggested by our camp’s resident guide, on our side of the river. Here there were no tourists at all, nor were there any platforms for easy trekking. We followed a path toward the Abai waterfall, which entailed crossing four rivers.  

 It had rained mightily last night, and the water level was higher than we’d experienced so far. If you know me, you know that skipping across rivers from slippery rock to slippery rock is not my thing – my balance is not great on a good day, and since my broken arm, I have an increased fear of falling. Nevertheless, off we went! 

  

  

On the narrow, wooded path, we saw big piles of what looked like elephant poop. How could this be? When we returned to camp, we were told that, indeed, a band of twenty elephants roams this jungle, running along the narrow paths. Sorry, all we saw was the cantaloupe-sized poop!  

   I successfully crossed three of the rivers, with much cajoling support from Jim, but the fourth proved too daunting, so we ended our trek before actually reaching the waterfall. 

 

Here’s a shiny fern I’ve never seen before: 
 

  And I lived to trek another day! 

Taman Negara National Park, Kuala Tahan, Malaysia

Flashpacking, Hiking, Malaysia, Travel,

7/31 – After a poor night’s sleep (I won’t whine about the air con dripping on our heads and the fan that only worked on ‘hurricane’ setting – oops, just did!), we were ready for some jungle trekking. Nusa camp is so far from from town that we have to be ferried by long boat 15 minutes to and from the village of Kuala Tahan to the entrance of Taman Negara national park. We had a hard time with the communication of what time the boat would drop us off and, more importantly, pick us back up. The boat ride downriver went over three sets of rapids, and was pretty exciting. Whoever sat in the front seat got the wettest!       

The tiny village of Kuala Tahan exists for the park and the tourists. It consists of a series of hostels, tourist agents and small floating restaurants, with water taxis ferrying tourists across the Tembeling River for one ringgit (25 cents) each way. IMG_1524

Once we entered the park, we had a choice of several trails to follow.  

  Today we walked the route along the river, mostly on raised boardwalks that preserve the flora beneath.IMG_1543

Here’s a pretty big tree!image

We saw evidence of wild boar – soil churned up wherever they root for truffles and such – but didn’t see any wildlife today.

The jungle really is dark, so much so that my camera flash often went off. Lots of mushrooms and fungi grow here.

Lots of pretty flowers too.

We walked to the river, and watched some people frolicking in the brown, muddy water… We’ve read that there are leeches in the river. Maybe we’ll swim another day…image

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Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Flashpacking, Hiking, Malaysia, Travel, ,

7/29 – Today we had another chance to see the different cultures that make up Malaysia. We started by visiting a colorful Hindu temple.

Right across the street was a Chinese temple.

The Central Market had many Muslim shops.

In the evening, we were swimming in the rooftop pool, when it began to rain. We took shelter under an overhang, then watched with amazement as the Police headquarters building across the way belched smoke and flame from an upper story.image
A Malaysian man watching with us said it was probably arson, and the news later confirmed that the floor that was set on fire was the floor where confiscated drugs are stored. There’s lots of corruption in the Malaysian government these days.

Pretty pix of the evening skyline.image

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The Petronus Twin Towers are just to the right of the green tower.

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Penang National Park, Malaysia 

Backpacking, Flashpacking, Hiking, Malaysia, Travel, , , ,

7/20 – So, here we are at the northern end of Penang Island to do a week’s trekking in Penang National Park.   

 

Mind you manners here please – no lewd kissing! 

 Admission to the park is free, and there are several trail routes to choose – to the University Research Center, Monkey Beach, the Lighthouse, Turtle Beach and the Canopy Walk.  Unfortunately, the Canopy Walk is closed for renovation.  Our first destination is the University Research Center.

 

This trek hugged the coastline, with different views of the water (Straits of Malacca), always on our right.

   
 

Parts of the trail were relatively flat and easy to navigate, while other parts involved some climbing and scrabbling over rocks, big roots and downed trees. 

    
 
The weather was HOT, and we sweated buckets even walking in the shade of the jungle. Very pretty tree trunks here.

    
Here are the same “temple-eating” trees (Ficus strangulosa) that we encountered at Angkor Wat in Thailand.  Looks like they also eat bridges!

 

There are several buildings and a pier at the Research Center.  It was a nice place to stop and eat our lunch before retracing our path back home.

    
 
7/21 – The next day we hiked farther along the seaside trail to see Monkey Beach.  As promised, there were monkeys here, long-tailed macaques of the agressive variety. 

    
  

We were sitting on a bench and talking to some Malaysian students and a couple from Switzerland, when a monkey jumped down and grabbed Jim’s backpack!  Luckily, his reflexes were quick, and he was able to snatch it back.  The monkey stayed on the ledge, looking a little disgruntled.

   

The beach was pretty, and we met another group of Malaysian students who had all just graduated from university.  They are all engineers!

   

7/23 – Today we hiked up the mountain toward Turtle Beach.  The terrain was steep, and it was dark under the canopy, but still very hot.  

     
There was a waterfall, and a dirt path used by water buffalo to haul logs out of the jungle.  

   
 
 
These roots look a little snake-like, don’t you think?  I examined them carefully before stepping on them!  

We hiked up to the Canopy Walk, which looked like it was intact, but was roped off so it could not be used. 

 
We’ll have to come back another year to walk the Canopy!

Koh Chang to Bangkok, Thailand

Backpacking, Flashpacking, Hiking, Thailand, Travel, ,

7/13 – As we wind down our last days on Koh Chang, here are some more pics of our adventures:

On one of our walks, we stumbled on a posh resort with a helipad and other things for the very rich.  We opted not to pay the entrance fee to tour the resort (see rich tourists in their natural habitat!), but did take some pics of the elephant statues just inside the gate.  

 
We stopped to have lunch at a roadside stand on the road to the resort- barbecued chicken wings, sticky rice and spicy shredded papaya salad.  The road doesn’t get any traffic except from the workers on their way to and from the resort. The proprietor had no English, but we let her know the food was delicious! 

 

This is called “hairy fruit”, or rambutan.  You slice open the hairy skin and discard it to find the sweet, grape-like fruit inside.  The fruit is just a thin layer over a very large pit, so bite down carefully!

   

7/14 – We woke early to get on the minibus to go back to Bangkok.  One ferry ride and nine hours later, we walked, exhausted, into our hotel.  Bangkok is one huge traffic jam, and the ride that was supposed to take four hours took more than double.  Our driver asked us to direct him to the hotel (!), then could not follow the directions on our GPS.  After the third try, we got out and walked.  Only a few days here, then we catch the train for the 24 hour ride to Malaysia.  Back on the road again!

Koh Chang, Thailand – When Monkeys Attack!

Flashpacking, Hiking, Thailand, Travel, , ,

7/6 – So, here we are for a lazy month on a tropical island.  The days blend together, with walks in the mornings, swimming in the afternoons, and sea gazing in the evenings.  We read for hours every day, thanks to Overdrive and Kindle.  We are taking advantage of the great wifi to catch up on Netflix – we’re halfway through the third season of House of Cards.  We talk to tourists as they come and go – most are from Germany and Scandinavia.  We eat at little open-air restaurants – our resort has the best one, the Bamboo Hut.  Nothing happens here, and that is okay with us.  

 One morning, we hiked over to the Bang Bao fishing village to get some supplies. We bought some groceries, including a bunch of the little, sweet bananas we like so much. As we walked back toward our beach with our plastic grocery bags, we spied some monkeys by the side of the road. Please excuse the fuzzy shot, but how often do you see a monkey on a motorbike?  This monkey will become significant in a minute…

   

I joked to Jim that the monkeys were waiting for him to offer them a banana. All of a sudden, Jim yelled and swung the plastic grocery bag, which now had a big monkey attached, holding on to the bananas with all four feet and screeching! OMG! He was trying to steal our bananas!  I wish I could say I provided some assistance in fighting off the attacker, but truth to tell, I dropped my bag and ran backwards, leaving poor Jim to deal with the monkey.  He was not cute, and looked a lot bigger up close.  Jim kicked at it once as he dropped the bag, then kicked it again before the monkey let go of the bag, and scurried back to the other side of the road to join his mates. I was still yelling OMG! while checking to see if Jim had been scratched or bitten – who knows what diseases monkeys carry?  Jim was okay.  The big monkey hunched on the other side of the road with his buddies, hissing at us. He was mad!  I was afraid he would run at us again, so I raised my arms up over my head (making myself appear larger – I think I read this in an article about what to do if attacked by a bear) and hissed right back at him.  He and his monkey gang stayed on the other side of the road, and we power-walked home, pumped with adrenaline, Jim looking forward, and me looking back.

Sorry to say, there is no photographic evidence of this incident.   After the blurry pic, I totally forgot to preserve any part of this story for posterity, so here is an Internet pic of hissing monkeys: 

 

Here is the sign at our village that someone must not have heeded: 

 

See?  Didn’t I tell you this post would be exciting?

Kep, Cambodia – the Beach

Cambodia, Flashpacking, Hiking, Travel, ,

6/12 – This morning we bade farewell to the lovely but isolated Botanica Guesthouse and tuk-tukked down the road to beautiful downtown Kep.  Here we found a street with shops, restaurants and even an ATM!   

 

A Hindu statue at the roundabout:

  

We will stay at the Saravoan Hotel, just steps from the beach, for the next week or so.

Kep is all about the beach.   Out on the pier is a statue of a lady – the locals have draped her in scarves to cover her immodesty. 

     Even monks need a vacation: 

Here is the view from our balcony.  Sorry if there’s not much to blog this week – I intend to spend most of my time swimming!

   6/14 – We woke up on Sunday morning to the sounds of people and traffic.  What’s going on in our sleepy little town?  We walked out of our hotel into a flurry of activity – restaurants had set up extra tables on the sidewalk, carts lined the street hawking food, fruit, ice cream, cold drinks, crabs and squid.   Music filled the air.


Sunday is the day when locals pile their families into cars and rent a parking space near the water, and buses of tourists come from nearby Vietnam for a day in the sun. 

Little cabanas are for rent, where families picnicked and swung in hammocks in the shade. 


The afternoon turned cloudy, but the weather didn’t deter the revelers.  You’ll notice that folks stay mostly clothed, even when they go into the water.   

After a swim, we sat on our balcony and gazed out at the water.  Around dusk, two monkeys strolled down the street, stopping to inspect the trash on the roadside, lick out food containers and help themselves to anything that looked tasty.  There’s a sign in our hotel warning guests not to leave anything out on the balcony where it can be stolen by monkeys.  We brought our shoes indoors, just in case.  We watched them for a long time, and listened to the sound of the gentle waves. What a treat!