Hare Hare Hare Krishna

Day 7 - Frome

At last night's dinner we were given some good advice on towns to visit in the area, so we started off by driving to Wells. It was market day so we had to stop by a few carparks until we finally found one with space. We strolled around the town, visiting the Wednesday market, the cathedral and Bishop's Palace.

We drove on to the "hippy" town of Glastonbury, known for the music festival but apparently also a place where westerners can pretend they are religious Indians and sing about Hare Krishna. There were lots of shops with crystals and potions, men with pointy beards and pony tails and women with kaftans and pink/blue hair. 

It was a nice sunny day so we had lunch, then walked around town for while, viewing the ruins of the abbey from the outside and with the Glastonbury Tor in the background.

Back in Frome we walked the steep cobbled streets, checking out some of the local shops, followed by a quick drink at a quaint local pub which seemed to have a nice authentic atmosphere. 

Winchester Cathedral, you're bringing me down

Day 6 - Winchester to Frome

M took an early walk through the Winnall Moors nature reserve before returning to pack up and check out. We left the car at the hotel and explored Winchester, including a look at the cathedral, which we have since learnt is the longest in the world, though it wasn't obvious to us at the time. 

We drove on to Southampton and stopped at the waterfront (where the Titanic left from) to watch huge ships being towed by small tugs to start their ocean journey.

Our next destination was Old Sarum outside of Salisbury, though we had a little trouble getting there as we always seems to be in the wrong lane and ended heading off in the wrong direction, and the traffic didn't help, getting caught in a traffic jam along the way.

Old Sarum was built around 400 BC, the massive circular earthworks served as an early defensive hilltop fort. William the Conqueror who built a royal castle here around 1070, and a cathedral followed. Not much of it is left, there are some excavated stone walls and drawings to help you imagine the original buildings and rooms, but much of the stone was removed to build other forts and castles in the area.

We made it to Salisbury Cathedral where we joined the 2pm stonemasons tour, a behind the scenes look at the restoration work being done at the cathedral. The cathedral is home to Britain's tallest spire, oldest working clock, and an original copy if the Magna Carta from 1215. The tour included a visit to the stonemasons' workshop, where they seemed to be working in what seemed to be dusty and potentially unhealthy conditions. After the tour we had time to look at the Magna Carta and wander through the very impressive cathedral.

Finally we drove to Frome, our home for the next 3 nights. We spent a lovely evening with K's Spanish teacher from Barcelona and her friends at one of the local pubs though it seemed they'd lost our food order but made up for it by offering us free drinks.

It's so dry

Day 5 - Brighton to Winchester

This morning we woke up at a regular time, hopefully our time adjustment is now sorted. 

Our room had a lovely view over the ocean which K enjoyed while M went for a walk, heading away from the beach through some parks then along the beach and down to the water's edge.

After that we went across the road for a decent flat white at one of the cafes on the promenade by the pebbly beach, followed by a wander through The Lanes. 

We then walked to The Royal Pavilion where the gardens had been burnt to a dry crisp by the heat waves and drought that's hit England this summer. The Royal Pavilion was built for King George IV and has distinctive Indian architecture with bulbous domes, minarets and arches. Apparently the interior is decorated with a Chinese influence, talk about a cultural mix.

We left Brighton and drove on to Worthing, stopping in the pretty village of Arundel for lunch by the river with the very impressive Arundel Castle up the hill.

Our next stop was Portsmouth, where we stopped at Gunwharf Quays which was a huge shopping centre which reminded us of Docklands, very modern with lots of shops. From there we walked to Spice Island and the historic waterfront area of Old Portsmouth which was more interesting. Walking through the ferry terminal we followed the edge of the harbour, finding a pub where we had a quick drink while watching the huge ferries pass by.

We drove on to Winchester, our stop for the night, relaxing for a drink in the hotel garden before heading out for a delicious Nepalese meal.

Woosh Woosh

Day 4 -  Dover to Brighton

We woke up around 5am, not quite having caught up with the time difference yet, so we decided to visit the Dover cliffs before the crowds arrived. Getting there around 7am we basically had the place to ourselves with only a couple of locals walking their dogs. We followed the cliff path admiring the chalk cliffs and the huge port below us, and we could faintly see France in the distance.

Our early start meant we had more time up our sleeve than we'd planned so we drove to Margate, the opposite direction of our originally planned route, to visit the Shell Grotto. The grotto is a series of 21 metres of underground tunnels discovered in 1835. It's unknown when it was built, by who and for what purpose. It's decorated with 4.6 million shells all over the walls and ceiling.

Our lunch stop was at the very busy Harbour Arm in Folkestone for lunch where the pebbled port and foreshore area had been developed into a very popular entertainment area.

From there we followed the coastal road through Rye and Hastings to Eastbourne where we found ourselves driving through crowds who were there to see Europe's largest seafront airshow! There were road closures, detours, traffic queues and lots of buses. We seem to have a talent for finding ourselves in cities during major events that we had no idea about, like when we were in Budapest during the Red Bull airshow. As we drove through town we could hear the woosh of the planes overhead but couldn't see them from inside the car.

After Eastbourne we took the coastal drive which takes in the striking chalk cliffs of Beachy Head, Birling Gap and Seven Sisters. We stopped at Birling Gap to walk to the lighthouse along the cliff edges with their sheer straight drops down to the ocean. The edge of the cliff was roped off for safety but that didn't stop people from standing near the edge for photos.

The coastal drive from there took us through Seaford to our hotel on the Brighton foreshore. We checked in then explored the Lanes area behind the hotel. It was a little quiet as it was Sunday night, but there were plenty of eating and drinking places open.

That looks rough

Day 3 - Helsinki to Dover (England) 

Our body clocks weren't in sync with the local time zone yet so we were both wide awake at 4am. We headed down for a very early breakfast, surprised to find there were already lots of people up and eating.

It was only a two minute walk from the hotel to the departures terminal where we checked in for our flight. We were flying into Heathrow for the first time, the only other time we've been to the UK we flew in and out of Bristol.

The flight was only three hours, we landed around 9am, retrieved our luggage then walked for about ten minutes through a long underground walkway to collect our rental car. Of course they didn't have the car we had booked, but we resisted the attempts to convince us to pay "just a little bit extra" for a larger car, finally walking away with the larger car and no increase in price! After finding the car the next thing we had to do was google how to put the car into reverse, it turns out the controls were on a stalk on the steering wheel!

Traffic out of Heathrow was very busy, so figuring out a new car while working out where to go was a bit tricky, but we finally were on our way to Dover for our first stop in the UK. 

We arrived in Dover a while before we could check in so we decided to visit the White Cliffs, only to find that the car park was full. So, we parked the car, dropped off our luggage, and spent the afternoon walking along the promenade, watching the ferries crossing the channel and wondering how people could lie on such a pebbly beach!

We were pretty tired so had a very early dinner at at a nice Italian restaurant with water views, before going to bed around 7:30pm. 

How long has it been?

Day 1 - Melbourne to Bangkok 

Yes, it's been a whole 66 days since we returned from our last trip. Must be a record, right? Maybe - but only if you don't count M's short trip to South East Asia that he returned from just 13 days ago!

Enough of that, time to get this blog going again.

We took off for the first of three flights to England, first leg Melbourne to Bangkok. A civilised departure at 1.30pm had us arriving around 8pm local time, for a stopover at our usual airport hotel.

Day 2 - Bangkok to Helsinki 

With what's been happening in the world we weren't keen on getting to Europe via the Middle East, so from Bangkok we opted to fly to Helsinki, taking advantage of some reasonably priced business class fares, which made the 13 hour flight slightly more tolerable.

We were looking forward to visiting Helsinki again after our visit four years ago, but by the time we made through the incredibly slow and inefficient border formalities we ended up having an early night at the very convenient Clarion Hotel at the airport.

Back to the cold

Day 28 - Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) to Melbourne (Australia)

Our flight ticket allowed us to use the Malaysia Airlines lounge, so after an early start we were able to have a reasonable breakfast (nothing special, but at least the coffees weren't made in a machine), before our uneventful flight home.

Our next trip isn't too far away, but we will have to endure more of Melbourne's cold winter weather than we'd like before escaping again!

That paru rendang looks nice ... hang on, wait a minute ...

Day 27 - Kuala Lumpur 

The only task for today was to change hotels as the city is an hour from the airport and we had an early flight home the next morning. 

We had been looking forward to breakfast as the buffet was one of the highlights of our previous stay at Traders Hotel many years ago, but we ended up being a bit disappointed. It was crowded, the food wasn't very hot, and M couldn't bring himself to try the Rendang Paru, which translates to beef lung rendang!  

After a final visit to the Club Lounge we checked out at 12pm, and made our way to the Sami Sami airport hotel (yes, Grab again).  We arrived a bit early for check-in so we had some lunch, before finally making our way up to our room. We explored the departures area of the airport to see if we could have dinner somewhere other than the hotel restaurant, finding a Malaysian restaurant where we later had the final rendang of our trip.   

Nice upgrade!

Day 26 - Bandar Seri Bagawan (Brunei) to Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) 

Royal Brunei Air flies directly to Melbourne and this would have been a much easier way to get home but as it was an overnight flight we decided to take the long way home via Kuala Lumpur. Our flight was very early so there was little traffic, meaning we arrived a bit early and we were pretty much the first people there (and of course the flight then left late). 

After landing we took a Grab (where would we be without Grab) to the Traders Hotel, where we managed a free upgrade to a club room, meaning access to the Club Lounge with a great view over KLCC Park, free afternoon tea with scones, jam and cream, and complimentary drinks and nibbles during happy hour until 7pm. After afternoon tea we took a walk to the KLCC Centre, a giant shopping mall crammed with both locals and tourists, including lots of children visiting the Lego exhibition. 

We definitely feel that we're on our way home now and that the 4 week holiday was too short, especially given that we're returning to a Melbourne winter.

The Sultan is very good to us

Day 25 - Bandar Seri Begawan  

We hadn't really timed our visit to Brunei very well, as our only full day there was a Friday, the Islamic holy day, which meant many attractions and places of interest were closed.

We decided to book a morning city tour to ensure we saw the key sites before leaving, so at 9am we were collected and joined four South Korean ladies who were spending a week in Brunei.

Our tour guide had very good English (it is taught in school) and she was very good at explaining how this tiny, but extremely wealthy, country operates. Some of what she told us sounded a little like propaganda, as she was continually praising the Sultan and how he looked after his people. 

We visited a local market, followed by a Chinese temple then a stop at the magnificent Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque, which tourists couldn't enter on a Friday.  The mosque has an enormous lagoon out the front complete with a full size replica of a 16th century Royal Barge. It was very hot so we all scurried back to the cool of the van once we'd had a good look.

From there we visited the government handicraft training centre where the seven main art forms of Brunei were taught and showcased (nearly everyone in Brunei works for the generous government/Sultan). There were things like leatherwork, weaving and metalwork, but strangely no ceramics. 

We then visited the outside of the Istana Darussalam, the old wooden palace where the current Sultan of Brunei was born, before visiting the Istana Nurul Iman, the Sultan's current palace and the world's largest private residence of a monarch. We stood outside the gates and peered in, before jumping back into our van to escape the heat.  

We finished off our tour by visiting the impressive Jame' Asr Hassanil Bolkiah Mosque, complete with an incongruous private escalator to take the Sultan to the top floor.

After returning to the hotel around 11:40am we thought we'd get something in the hotel café, but as it was Friday this meant everything had to be closed between 12 and 2 for midday prayer. Strangely though we could still get room service during this time. 

That afternoon M went for a walk into town, walking along the waterfront across from the floating village (which had been rebuilt by the Sultan after a fire), then visiting the food market where families were spending their afternoon.

This place looks nice

Day 24 - Gaya Island (Malaysia) to Bandar Seri Begawan (Brunei)

After breakfast we reluctantly packed up and left our lovely bungalow on the hill to get the 11am boat back to the mainland. The boat ride was very smooth and comfortable, and along the way we stopped at another resort to pick up more passengers.

From the port we caught a Grab to the airport, but we were a bit early so had to wait for about an hour for check in to open, followed by another 3 hours until our plane took off for the 40 minute flight to Brunei. There wasn't even enough time for the seat belt sign to be turned off as the flight was so short. 

Exiting the airport at Brunei it was immediately apparent that we were in a much wealthier country. Everything was clean and well kept and the cars all looked new. It was a short trip to our hotel in the city centre of the capital, Bandar Seri Begawan, where we settled in and ate a nice Indian meal at the hotel restaurant.

Island life

Days 22 and 23 - Gaya Island

Two very similar days while we relaxed on the island. After a good nights' sleep in our quiet and peaceful bungalow we walked down for breakfast in the Longhouse. Along with the decent breakfast buffet, M tried some freshly cooked Malaysian stir fried noodles, while K stuck with traditional breakfast fare like eggs and pancakes. 

On the first day K treated herself to an hour long facial while M explored. Each day, we relaxed with drinks on our balcony, enjoying the stunning views across the bay. On our walks we found more monitor lizards and a few monkeys, but overall the resort was peaceful and quiet.

Unfortunately the Indian restaurant by the beach was closed for renovations, but dinner at the Longhouse was always excellent. We had satay and rendang one night for dinner but changed it up to have some black pepper beef the next night.

It was a refreshing couple of days and just what we needed before leaving Borneo to start our circuitous journey home.

Don't answer the door, it could be a monkey ...

Day 21 - Kota Kinabalu to Gaya Island

Off to Gaya Island today, the large island we could see from our hotel room, just 6km from the coast. We took the complimentary 12.30pm boat provided as part of our accommodation package at the Bunga Raya Island Resort. It was a smooth boat ride, although the amount of rubbish in the water was surprising. We shared the trip with a Danish couple, who said they loved Queen Mary and that she had "made their King strong".

We arrived a little early for check in so we had some lunch, then sat by the pool until our room was ready. We were taken by buggy to a lovely room up the hill behind the resort, with a beautiful view over the bay and a spacious veranda. We were told to be careful of the monkeys as they even know how to knock on the door.

K took advantage of the free weaving class where she was the only participant, and learnt to make a grasshopper from bamboo leaves. While K was doing that M went exploring, finding a giant monitor lizard (it was giant even though it doesn't look like it in the photo) which walked down the beach and into the water for a swim. 

We went down to the restaurant for happy hour to have some cocktails before a very nice dinner of satay sticks (yet again) and rendang.

It's kind of quiet here?

Day 20 - Kota Kinabalu

After breakfast we walked to the Gaya Street Sunday market, which was only 10 minutes away. It was quite hot but a bit better than at the festival yesterday. 

K bought a couple of KK souvenirs for Myles, he's still young enough to be OK with wearing a "I Love KK" t-shirt!

In the afternoon M did a bit of exploring along the waterfront. The streets were quiet, probably due to a combination of it being Sunday, the cultural festival being on at KDCC, and the heat.

Before sunset we headed down to the same cocktail bar as yesterday and scored a good table by the water, but it wasn't long before it became very busy with groups and couples.  

Time for some culture

Day 19 - Kota Kinabalu 

After breakfast we took a Grab to the KDCA Cultural Village at Hongkod Koissan, not sure of what we'd find. It was a 20 minute drive and when we arrived the Harvest Festival was well underway. It was busy so we followed the crowd to the main hall where people were standing outside the doors manned by police. We managed to bluff our way in, K tagged onto the tail of a group, then M followed a few minutes later telling the guard "my wife is in there". We took a seat where we watched some song and dance performances followed by a parade of women representing their town/region in a beauty contest, all of them dressed and made up identically.

After the parade it was lunch so we followed everyone outside and wandered around various stalls selling traditional Sabah clothes, accessories and souvenirs. The crowd was predominantly local, there were very few people like us. We wandered through the buildings and tents, may people were dressed in traditional clothing and performing dances, while others sat around eating their lunch. Some of the stalls had indigenous music, instruments and produce, often with their beauty contest representative posing for photos with the public. The food area had a lot of stalls, cooking all sorts of meats, like black pepper lamb, satay, and pigs on a spit. It was starting to get really hot and it was becoming quite overwhelming so we decided we'd seen enough and grabbed a car back to the air conditioning of our hotel.

In the evening we walked across the road to the waterside restaurants, with a view of the islands and the planes coming in to land flying quite low directly overhead. We started at one bar where the happy hour drinks were mostly ice, so we moved on to a much better and more popular cocktail bar where we could order our dinner from the Malaysian restaurant next door. There was a cover band playing and it was quite amusing watching the young couples enjoying the boomer music, singing along with every word while swaying their arms in the air, they knew the songs better than we did!

Couldn't have timed it better if we tried

Day 18 - Jakarta to Kota Kinabalu (Borneo / Malaysia)

It was time to say goodbye to the family as they flew back to Bali for the last few days of their holiday. We were flying back to Borneo (for the third time this trip!), heading for Malaysia on the northern part of the island. 

We landed in Kota Kinabalu which is quite different from Indonesian Borneo. KK is more modern and popular with tourists, and as we were checking in the clerk told us we'd arrived in time for the annual Kaamatan Harvest Festival, the biggest cultural festival of the year, which was starting the next day - something we had no idea about before arriving!  

Our hotel was across the road from a market and a number of waterside restaurants, and our room had a lovely water view taking in the bay and the nearby islands. M went to change some money at a nearby shopping centre, while K relaxed in the room. We had heard it was worth viewing the sunset from the hotel rooftop so we headed up for a drink.

Once the sun had set we stayed at the hotel for a tasty Malaysian dinner (including more satay!). Strangely, we were seated well away from the other diners as we wanted a drink with our meal, but it worked out well as it was nice and quiet and we had a waiter to ourselves.

Goodbye Tanjung Puting

Day 17 - Tanjung Puting to Jakarta 

Our riverboat trip was scheduled to finish at 10am but as the boat didn't have a same day booking we had a leisurely morning and a slow cruise back to port.

We were collected from the port at midday and dropped off at the Mercure hotel in Pangkalan Bun for lunch until it was time to go to the airport for our flight back to Jakarta where we were to spend a night before the next part of our trip.

We stayed at a different airport hotel this time, still in Terminal 3 but at the international end, which had a much better selection of eating places. We enjoyed yet another spicy satay dinner, which was a nice change as the meals on the boat had been quite bland (to our tastes), although seeing the facilities the cook had at her disposal it's amazing what she managed to produce.

Take that monkeys!

Day 16 - Camp Leakey

After a surprisingly restful night we moved on to Pondok Tanguii. We were told that as the jungle was currently in full bloom there was ample food so there was chance no orangutans would show up for their free breakfast, especially as they hadn't seen any for the last three days. We were lucky and witnessed a few orangutans arriving and feeding, some with babies.

We then motored on to an estuary where there was a distinctive change in the colour of the water, from dirty brown to a tar like black colour. We saw lots of monkeys swinging and making massive leaps from tree to tree, which included proboscis monkeys, named for their huge noses.

After lunch we arrived at the famed Camp Leakey, established in 1971 to provide a base for the scientific study of orangutans. We made the 1.5km walk in very hot and humid conditions to arrive at the feeding station which was in full sun. This was the busiest viewing site we'd seen.

Our guide said that it was highly unlikely we would see any orangutans so after half an hour K and family headed back to the boat, while M stayed behind. On the boardwalk, not far from the wharf, K's group encountered some aggressive grey monkeys blocking the way and baring their teeth. K has had some experience tussling with primates at close quarters (check out our Rwanda posts) so she went after them with her hat to clear the way, while the rest of the family cowered in fear like pathetic weaklings as the cohort of monkeys were bringing up the rear. Back at the feeding station M finally saw a solitary orangutan come down to feed, a bit disappointing as he would rather have seen K battling the monkeys.   

Heavy rain started late in the afternoon and the boat staff went to work lowering awnings and tarps to ensure we stayed dry. After dark we moved to a part of the river where we could see fireflies, and once the rain slowed the fireflies turned the trees on the bank into sparkling Christmas trees. Some of the fireflies came close enough that we we could pick them up and see the sparkles up close.

I think those dots are fireflies (though I'm surprised you can see anything at all)

The rain lowered the temperature to make things a little more comfortable, and we docked on the side of the river amongst the palms for the night, with the generator running to keep us cool enough to sleep.

Wild man of Borneo

Day 15 - Tanjung Puting National Park 

We were collected from our hotel at 9am and and driven to the river port in the town of Kumai. We walked through a number of docked boats to reach our houseboat home for the next 2 nights. Our boat had three levels and two bedrooms for the five of us. There were also six others on board - our guide, the boat captain and his assistant, their sons home for the school holidays, and a cook.

We travelled up the main river, past commercial ships before turning into the national park. We spent a few hours spotting monkeys and orangutans in the trees. One side of the river had rehabilitated orangutans, while wild ones were on the other side. 

We stopped at Tanjung Harapan wharf where we first visited the small museum, before walking further into the jungle to the feeding station where the rangers bring fruit for orangutan feeding time. The first orangutan to show was the alpha male who had his fill, then gathered more fruit with his mouth and hands before climbing back into the forest.

Orangutans are solitary apes so once the male had left a mother with a baby and toddler arrived, followed by other females. In between orangutans visiting the feeding platform squirrels helped themselves, and at one point a wild boar scavenged underneath. We arrived back at the boat to find an orangutan hanging out in the tree hanging over the wharf.

After travelling further up the river we went for a night trek. We were lucky enough to see a tarsier, a small nocturnal primate with big eyes, apparently this was the first one our guide had seen for a year. It quickly jumped between trees to get away from us, but we were able to get close enough for some photos.  

At our night dock power was connected to the boat via long extension cords which powered the air conditioners, something we really needed as it was very hot and humid.

Back to the jungle (and the palm oil plantations)

Day 14 - Jakarta to Pangkalan Bun 

Back to Borneo today with a short flight to Pangkalan Bun in the south of the island. As we came in to land it was easy to spot the palm oil plantations encroaching on the jungle.

There were five of us now so on arrival at the small airport we jumped into two taxis to get to the modern Mercure Hotel near the centre of town. There was some heavy rain just after we arrived, but it stopped in time for us to walk down the street for a quick explore followed by some shopping then dinner at the hotel.