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May 10 Last days in IndiaWell, we've officially ended the part of this trip that was the initial impetus for flying all over the damn world. I'm still a bit loopy since we've been travelling for about 20 hours now and I'm not thinking super well, but here's the run down on the last few days and some pretty pictures to look at.
After the Thrissur Pooram we spent another day just relaxing at the same hotel. Not much going on there. The next day we had a long 6 hr drive up into the mountains around Munnar. On the way we got to stop and ride elephants!!!
  We stayed at a resort that was kind of up in the forest and it was nice because the temp had cooled way down to a more bearable 24 (celsius). This was in an area where they grow a lot of tea - so some of the people did a day hike up through the tea plantation while others of us went to a tea factory and then did a jeep ride through the plantation. Spent 2 nights there - with of course the requisite indian buffet breakfast/lunch/dinner. Yum.
  After Munnar we had another couple hour drive to the Kerala Backwaters where we saddled up on 5 houseboats. The boats are reconverted cargo skiffs - large boats with very flat bottoms designed for working on the Muthoot river which is never more than 8ft deep. We motored around on the river, stopped for lunch (served on the boats), got some sun, played some cards, drank some beer. At night we docked up where we got a demonstration of an India martial art (pretty cool - especially the sword fighting parts), had dinner (yup, indian buffet!) and then just had some bollywood dance offs with the staff on the boat. Next morning we got to motor along again for a couple hours, then into the vans for a thankfully short drive to the Murari Beach resort.
  The resort was very nice - right on the ocean, very spacious little cottages, and of course, a great indian buffet for all 3 meals :) We spent the last official day and night of the tour with some poolside antics, swims in the ocean and a little beach volleyball action. And of course some Kingfisher and Sandpiper beers (thanks Erik for the incredibly long beer run!). We had our nice last dinner where everyone agreed that the trip was great and we were all super grateful to George and Simone for organizing the whole thing which was probably a crazy effort!!!!! Some of the folks then starting leaving. A handful of us stayed though the next day and night and just availed ourselves of the resorts facilities. Got to check out a nice sunset and play some more volleyball so I was happy.
  Today we saddled up a van around noon since 5 of us were flying out at the same time... drove 2 hours to Kochin airport (not to bad for a regional airport in India). Then a 2 hour wait for our flight. Then 3 hours to Delhi. Then a 5 hour layover. Then 3.5 hours to Bangkok. Now we're in the midst of 4 hours here (we managed to not have to check our bags in anywhere which made navigating the airport - and our flight out of here which was booked separately - much easier). And then off to phuket for the last phase of this trip. Beaches and if we can swing it we're going to do our Advanced Diver certification on Koh Phi Phi. So we've got 6 nights here and then back to Seattle! May 03 No Rules IndiaWell, Alan and I survived our ridiculous layover in Chennai (never, ever fly to Chennai unless you abosolutely have to) and our turbo prop to Kochin left on time and arrived with no problems. Our tour organizer was waiting for us at the airport with a very sweet Ambassador classic - a car that looks like, and is built with the same parts and quality as it was in 1950 - and we got our first taste of driving in India. Which is to say we learned to not worry so much about close calls every 5 - 10 seconds. But we made it without a scratch to our hotel the Brunton Boatyard. The hotel was originally a shipbuilding facility started more than a century ago which was converted into a hotel and is very nice - lots of historical things to read and look at that give a sample of the history of the area of the dutch, portuguese and english influence. Alan and I had some food at the hotel, met up with the friends and pretty much went to bed to get ready for the big next day. George had been good enough to set Alan and I up with some kurtas to wear to the wedding and we were looking pretty sweet. Everyone had gotten one and the girls had saris and everyone was definately looking the part. The service was held at a local Catholic church with George's uncle doing the honours. Nice ceremony and then off to the Ramada for the first reception. This was kept to a small group of 400 friends and family. There were some speeches, a great indian buffet, and the bride and groom were brought in with some Kerala drummers - a pretty impressive sight. After the reception, it was back to the hotel to unwind for a bit, a few Kingfisher beers by the water, and then we were picked up behind the hotel and taken for a sunset cruise. The cruise ended at another hotel across the water where the reception for the close friends and family was held. This was a pretty fun time - the party was held out on the lawn. It was pretty hot, but most of us were stripped down to tshirts and linen pants, so we managed. The bridge and groom arrived on the dock and had their first dance with fireworks in the background. Then the buffet got served, the bar got opened up and the dj got the dance party on the lawn going. Good mix of music, and we had some full out Bollywood dance offs between the guys and the girls. The guys of course won :) Today (the 3rd) we had our breakfast, loaded up the vans and headed up to Thrissur. Unloaded at the hotel, and then went out because the Thrissus Pooram festival was going on. This is a HUGE religious festival and we had some sweet VIP seats. We had to to park and walk about 1Km to get to the seats since many of the roads were closed. The festival is 36 hours long but revolves mainly around a spectacle where 30 elephants face off against each other from about 200 yards apart and there are drummers and trumpeters playing music and then the riders on the elephants show brightly coloured umbrellas in unison and then the other group of elephant riders show their own umbrellas. This goes on for about 4 hours and every time a new umbrella went up the crowd goes WILD. It was estimated that there was about 250,000 people there at the festival. We were in an enclosed group of seats and had front row seats. It was very cool to see the elephants - but by the end we were all pretty hot and tired. And I was a bit edgy since I don't really like huge crowds and this one was massive. But we had to stay through the whole thing since there was no way to get out. There was one somewhat frightening moment at the end when some drunken reveler (many people were very drunk on whiskey at this thing) pulled the tail on one elephant and it went nuts - it actually knocked someone down and then then started to trample a police officer (he managed to escape relatively unharmed) and then it started down the vip scaffolding for a bit. But the rider managed to calm it down and then we got out of there. The walk back to the vans was a bit sketchy - there are no women at this festival and our group of girls were getting eyed a lot - so the guys sort of formed a circle around them and got them out of there. I also had someone attempt to pickpocket me - unfortunately for him I was wearing boardshorts with no pockets (not that I'd take a wallet with me into that scene) and I grabbed his wrist and I think gave him a pretty good scare since I was probably 2.5 times his size and he didn't realize I had 20 people with me! But we made it back and nothing was lost. Now we're just having a few drinks and then it's off to do... something... tomorrow.
April 30 Hello IndiaWell, we've made it to India. Not in Kochi yet - we've got a 9 hour layover in Chennai - but we're in the country. Which was kind of a close call... To rewind a bit...
Got to KL from Bali (so sad to see it go) and got in about 2am. We were torn between staying at the airport in a lounge or just going to the hotel. So we decided to just catch a cab into the city, and ended up getting a 2nd night at the Traders. Got a couple hours of sleep, finally got to wash the sand from our last surf off and went wandering in the city.
  We just walked around the downtown core (weren't able to get up the Petronus skybridge though) and then went to this large aviary where there are all kinds of exotic birds.
  In the evening we went for a swim on the 33rd floor pool, got our hot tub on.
We decided to just eat in the hotel, and then had a few Tiger beers for good measure. Then we went to the upstairs bar - which is in the pool area, but they close down the swimming at night and the pool is just ambience. It was actually a pretty cool scene - you've got the best view of KL in the background, a decent DJ and some very stiff gin & tonics... not to mention all sorts of people from around the world to chat with. I tried to set alan up with a russian model who was living in KL but turns out she had already married rich. After reaching our limit of g&t's we called it a night - and we also had an 8:30 flight.
 Luckily we had orderd 2 wake up calls becuase the first one didn't work. So we got up, wakled over the Petronus subway station, then caught the Ekspress train to the airport. We arrived in what we had thought was plenty of time, but apparently they had overbooked the flight and we were told that we would have to wait until the next day by a very unfriendly ticketing agent. After pancking a bit and talking to a couple of other airlines, we went back to the orignal counter and talked to the supervisor who took a bit of pity on us and then gave us seats in business class and rushed us through the airport in record time.
So now we're at Chennai airport (which is kind of a hole)... we tried to scam our way into the premiere lounge but have had to settle with the regular lounge. But there's internet and drinks, so we'll live. Couple more hours (8) and then we're off to Kochi to finally get to the event that this whole trip was for.
April 29 This is in the wrong order.This should be the 2nd post - it's about scuba diving. But it's late and i'm tired and things are out of order. My bad.
And the fun continues... Apologies for not posting more often, but the internet is spotty here at best. And by spotty, I mean occasionally it goes offline for days. Oh well, SE Asia. Day 2 found us going diving off an island east of Bali called Nusa Penida. We had 3 dives planned for the day - the first being our best chance of seeing Manta Rays since it's a known cleaning station for them. The boat ride over was pretty fun - it's basically a big speedboat on the open ocean so we're just flying over the swells and getting some decent airtime in the boat. Got to the first divesite and were hoping for some calm water to quell the seasickness that we were developing, but no luck. So we quickly strapped on our gear, dropped overboard and hoped that underwater would be better. Again, no luck... the swelling kept rocking us back and forth underwater and when we hit the surface Alan and I both lost our lunch in the ocean. I managed to boot & rally pretty quick, but Alan had to skip out on the 2nd dive and lie in the boat to try to settle things down.
But that aside, the dives were awesome. We did in fact see a bunch of manta rays. Those things are HUGE - probably have a 10 - 12 foot wingspan, and super graceful underwater. They would just swim by doing their thing and we got to hang out with them for a while. The 2nd dive was a super fun drift dive - just drop off the boat, and basically float at about 20M deep and watch the world go by. We probably drifed 1/2 mile in 1/2 hour. The third dive was full of more fun sealife - it's kind of funny to see a bunch of fish that I recognize from Finding Nemo. And we had a really croweded day again - there was alan, me, our guide, and Chaz, a fellow from Wales who was in Bali for a few months getting his divemasters degree. So it was another rough day (well, the seasickness seemed to take a bit of alan, but he eventually recovered, so all's good). The evening was pretty quiet - just had some expensive dinner a few Bintangs and we were done Day 3 we went diving off a placed called Padang Bai. It was bout an hours drive from Sanur and then 10 - 15 minutes on these little boats that are dugouts with outriggers. Bit tricky to dive off such a small boat, but still lots of fun. Did another drift dive, and then on our 2nd dive we saw 2 white tip reef sharks. One was just swimming aound and the other was just chilling under some coral. They were probably 5 or 6 feet long. Pretty scary looking things, but so very rad to see them in the wild.
After diving we packed all our stuff up and got a ride over to the other side of the island to Kuta beach. This area is way more packed and lively. So we went for a walk about town, bought some souvenirs (yes Stu, I have your Bintang tank top), signed up for some surf lessons and then found ourselves drinking in a pool bar as the sunset. We made friends with a couple of Aussies who are here for the week and the 4 of us made our way around to some of the various pubs and bars and had a few more beers. Alan even made friends with a nice young Indo girl who was working the hostess table at a completely dead bar we went by. Now it's 10:30, we've had our breakfast, bought some more sunscreen (the tan is coming along nicely) and we've just got to kill some time until our surf at 2:30. Then its' drinks with the boys, and Alan has himself a dinner date with a local. Life is tough. Happy Endings! Goodbye BaliApologies for the lack of posts - interweb is tough to find (working) in Bali. So i've written a post while sitting without internet and will paste it below. To get you up to speed though we have now left Bali, and have arrived in KL. Due to our lame arriving time (2:30 am) we ended up having to pay for another night at the hotel so that we could just get into a room and pass out for a bit. Ultra Lame.
 Inbetween the last post and now though we've gotten some more dives in, then spent our last 2 days in Bali at Kuta Beach where we were forced to relax on the beach in the mornings and take in the view, lounge in various ocean front pools, surf in the afternoons from about 3 to sunset (we took lessons on the first day but just rented boards the 2nd for super cheap), drank at some of the pool bars in the evenings, and have basically decided that we need to return to Bali ASAP.
 Going to spend the day now wandering about in KL... And then tomorrow morning we fly to Chennai where we have a painful 7 hour layover and then a short flight to Kochi to meet up with everyone.
Should be fun.   There are now more picture albums (look to the left of the page!) with more pics of scuba and Bali.
April 25 Bali so far...All is going well so far. Got to SEATAC at midnight and were welcomed by a giant line - thankfully it wasn't for us! We
managed to get moved to exit row seats, and the flight was empty enough that we only had the 2 of us in the row. Alan and I
both managed to get a couple hours of sleep in, and only 13 short hours later were in Taipei. Wandered around the airport,
played some xbox that they had sitting out, then got on our next flight which was only 6 more hours to Denpasar, Bali.
Nothing but good things to say all around for EVA air, even though neither of us had heard of them before.
At Bali we paid our 10 bucks for the entry visa, waited in line in a very hot and humid room for border control, then finally
got out. Our hotel had a guy waiting for us at the door, and we were driven to our place.
The hotel is small (10 rooms) but is super nice and clean, a great little pool in front, air conditioning that works, tasty
breakfast and is right across the street from our dive shop (Bali Scuba!). Spent some time just wandering around the beach
yesterday getting our bearings, and had a pretty delicious dinner with 2 giant Bintang beers for the outrageous price of
120,000 rupiahs - which is actually only 12 bucks. Keeping the conversion straight is kind of hard. Then Alan and I had
masseueses (sp?) come to our room and give us 1 hour Balinese massages (FINGER SNAP THING!). And no, they were not
"complete". Maybe tonight.... :D
Today we did our first dive. After breakfast, we walked across the street, got kitted out in gear and drove about 2.5 hours
north to Tulamben where we did 2 dives at the shipwreck of the USAT Liberty Glo. For those of you interested in the dive
details we went to 20M for 30 mins and then our 2nd dive we did 16M for 45 minutes. We saw the ship itself, got to dive in
the wreck a bit, saw all sorts of fish (trigger, surgeon, sweetlips, clown, etc, etc), a giant school of fish, all sorts of
things. It was pretty cool. It was also nice that we had our own guide, a driver, people to carry our gear, free lunch,
cold drinks provided.... the long and short of it is that Bali rules. Also, the water was 27 degrees (celsius). There were
people wearing full wetsuits - and we even got outfitted from the dive shop with them - but we both laughed and agreed that
they were sissies. We dove in shorts and rashguards and it was awesome. No waiting for the forhead to go numb on these
dives.
Tomorrow we're off to do 3 boat dives at Nusa Penida, an island about a 45 minute ride away in the Bali Scuba boat. We're
supposed to see Manta Rays and possibly sea turtles! There may be 3 other people on the boat with us (it can fit like 15
divers) so it should be pretty easy times.
And just so you know, i'm sitting by the pool right now in a pair of shorts - it's 80 degrees, the sun is setting, i'm full of fried rice and there's a cold Bintang by my side. We'll probably get another massage tonight since it's all been so
stressful.
  Check out the pics!!!!
  There are some more pics in the "Bali Diving" album off to the left side... more to upload later.
-cam April 20 Some more infoSo for those of you who might follow along, i've posted all the hotel, flights, etc.
Some other info:
We'll be diving in Bali with www.baliscuba.com and in Phuket with http://www.sunrisediving.net/
Pictures will be coming... shortly. 2 days! |
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