On little to no sleep after a shocking boat ride, we arrived in Newfoundland. My eyes widened as the beautifully stunning, rocky cliff faces and mountains appeared around us as we drove getting off the boat. We got as far as Corner Brook and spent the afternoon relaxing in the sun on the lawn with the locals and taking a nap.
The stunning views driving off the boat at Port-aux-Basque, Newfoundland.
We continued on driving from here to Pasadena where we were looking for our campground. We got a little lost but in turning around in an old guys lane way we were greeted local style with a guy yelling at us to get out of his drive way or he would kill us and he was going inside to get his gun. Just a touch scary….
We drove the next day through to a place called Leading Tickes and camped on the most spectacular beach . There was black rock sand and mountains jolting out of the water. We sat and took it all in as we ate raspberry and apple pie for dessert and watched the sunset. Life doesn’t get much better. Except for with a crossword puzzle by the fire.
The stunning black rock beach at Leading Tickles
The following day was off to Twillingate after a short hike up the mountain in the morning at Leading Tickles. We stopped in to see the giant whale skeleton and I was greeted by a man who had a lagerphone, a giant broom pole with bottle caps nailed to the side of it and a gumboot on the bottom. It is a makeshift musical instrument that they play by stomping the boot on the ground and hitting the broom stick with another smaller stick. We have them in Australia as well so the guy in the shop was super excited to pull one out and play it for me.
The Newfie Lagerphone
We bought a cod for dinner from a local store and set up at the campground for dinner. Then we went off to go and watch the local entertainment for the evening, The Split Peas. The band consisted of 7 Newfie women and they were incredible as they went through a whole bunch of traditional folk songs from the area and some they had written themselves. They fed us with traditional toutons and partridge berry jam. I was singing songs for the next week afterwards I loved it that much.
I spent the morning talking to our Aussie camping neighbours. They managed to entice me over the fence with the jar of Vegemite they were sporting and we chatted about home things. It was nice to have that familiarity for a while. From here it was on to check out the Long Point Lighthouse before driving down to Eastport where we had arranged a work for stay for a week or so. Of course stopping off to have a crack at eating my first moose burger.
Mmmm…. Moose burger!
I was excited as it was the first time I was going to be doing a work for stay and who knew what it would hold. Little did I know as I was driving up the laneway that it was going to be one of the most amazing adventures that I would have.
Check out my stay at Eastport Organics in the next installment!
After three weeks in Quebec we moved on into New Brunswick. After passing through the point in Caraquet we went to the Arcadian Historical Village for a visit. They had a set from the 1600’s with actors playing characters from the era. It was really cool to see how the place operated when it was in its original day.
Traditional bread making at the Arcadian Historical Village, Caraquet
On the way south from here we arrived in Miramichi to torrential downpours and decided that there was no point trying to pitch a tent in this kind of weather so we went to see a movie in the cinema, parked the car in McDonalds and slept in the car close to wifi access.
After another day of driving in huge torrential downpours through Moncton, we decided to continue on to Picton, Nova Scotia. We were kindly graced with a free campsite by a kind man who took pity on us pitching a tent in the ridiculous weather with all of the puddles about, so we crashed out for the night and continued driving until we got to Cape Breton Island.
Dunvegan was where we landed when the storm finally cleared. We set up camp in a stunning spot right on the beach that reminded me of home. I picked some wild raspberries from the bushes and we set up and ate dinner by the beach.
Beautiful sunset over the beach at Dunvegan
We continued driving north and made it to the the Cape Breton Highlands National Park where we did the Skyline hike out to the point. I ate wild raspberries and blueberries along the boardwalk all the way out to the point. From here there was more blueberries and raspberries eaten along the Neils Bay coastline hike along the beach. I got pretty bad sunstroke and spent most of the afternoon sleeping in the car on the way to Sydney, Nova Scotia.
View along the trail at the Cape Breton Highlands National Park
North Sydney sucked as a town. There wasn’t much to do there. But in the glorious graces it turned out to be lobster season so we drove down to the lobster shop and ordered a lobster for them to cook for us. I sat on the pier and cracked the lobster claws with a multitool…. my first ever lobster. I have eaten Tasmanian rock lobster or as we call it ‘crayfish’ at home but they look nothing like these lobsters and as such I was excited.
Playing with my food! My first ever lobster!!
After the lobster dinner by the water, we snuck in to watch Ted and The Watch at the movies with plenty of time to kill before catching the ferry to Newfoundland. After the movies we drove back to the ferry dock and found a stray dog running all over the road. He appeared to be lost and we were worried he was going to get hit by a car so we sat and stayed with him and called the RSPCA to come and get him to find out where he lived. After a couple of hours sitting with the pup, we said goodbye, and we went to catch the ferry to Newfoundland, the province I was most excited about seeing….
Lost puppy 🙂
For the next installment of Canada by Car stay tuned…..
For the next couple of weeksI will be busy hiking in some of the most spectacular mountains in the world through the Himalayas,wifi-free of course, so the next couple of weeks are going to be likea Throwback Thursday on Saturdays. Here’s my adventure across Canada! Enjoy and there will be mountain blogs whenI am off the mountain! Nameste!
I have been fortunate enough in the time that I spent in Canada to be able to have made it from the eastern most point in the country in Newfoundland, to the western most point of Canada on Vancouver Island. After living in Ontario for most of my time in Canada, my first other province to visit was Quebec and I spent three weeks here gallivanting around and having a fabulous time. So because we always start at the beginning, I will start at the very beginning of my Canadian exploration and we shall continue on through the provinces in coming weeks.
It all started in Montreal with a visit to the Red Path Museum of Natural History at the McGill University, which I really enjoyed. But the thing that stood out to me the most at this time in Montreal was the Jazz Festival that was kicking on with much craziness in the streets. I went down with a bunch of people that I didn’t know and started dancing with randoms to this incredible brass band playing their instruments in the street. My road trip had started with a party! The best possible way to start!
Loom weaving in the streets of Montreal
The party continued as we drove into Quebec City. For some reason that we did not know at the time, as we drove into the old quarters to our accommodation and was greeted with a shower of streamers falling from the sky. It turns out that the Festival d’ete’ du Quebec and I had arrived at the same time and we were in for a huge party. After checking into the hostel, we walked down to the highway underpass where they had strung up a stage and a huge lighting set up for the free Cirque du Soleil show for the evening. It was absolutely incredible and I was on the biggest high.
Cirque du Soleil show under the highway underpass
The second day in Quebec City was spent wandering around and checking out the citadel, the Notre Dame Basilica where we visited the crypt under the basilica, danced through the streets to numerous bands that were playing and went to the giant movie projected on the windmill down by the river. Of the most interesting and yet naughty behaviour that I got up to that day was when I visited the Chateau Frontenac, the most expensive hotel in Quebec. We managed to sneak in and up the elevators and were wondering around the floors of this amazing old building and looking out of the windows at the ends of each of the corridors at the views when we pass a maids cart. In these maids carts are very expensive Le Labo 31 New York designer shampoos, conditioners, body washes and soap. Being a pov traveller, the handbag opened up and more than a few samples went shoveled in and then off we go. I must have been the most fabulous smelling backpacker in the world for the next month. It was also in Quebec City that a seed was planted for quite an amusing make a buck scheme of bottle return. While it did not have any use in Quebec City of much, it came to become quite a fruitful idea which I will discuss more in future posts.
The famous Chateau Frontenac
So onwards from Quebec City to the Jacques-Cartier National Park. We set up our camping gear at the Hirondelle camp site and then went on a hike around the Les Loup track to the top of the mountain for the most spectacular view. After an awesome camp cooked dinner, we packed up our stuff and went to bed. This sleep was short-lived however. At 1am there is something outside of the tent throwing things around and twigs are snapping…. Hysterical… “What the hell is that?? Is that a bear?? OH SHIT! I left the toothpaste in my backpack and forgot to take it back to the car! OH SHIT! OH SHIT!” So trying not to breathe, and laying very still, we sit and listen to the bear. Eventually it disappears. Eventually I get to sleep.
Jacques-Cartier National Park
The next day was another fifteen kilometer hike up a mountain and chilling out with dinner and crossword puzzles before heading ouf to the next destination of Saguenay. There wasn’t really a great deal to do in the Ville Saguenay/Chicoutimi area so we continued on to Tadoussac, famous for its whale watching and set up camp there for the evening. As the thunderstorms set in, we hid in the laundry of the campground in the hope that the tent would withstand the literal hurricane going on outside. Lucky for us, it had calmed down by midnight and the tent was still standing.
The fountain in the river at Ville Saguenay/Chicoutimi
The morning was not the best weather and it was too foggy to see very far, but we went out on the boat whale watching and saw a heap of dolphins, porpoises, seals and minke whales. It was really cool. A little bit sad that we did not get to see one of the famous blue or humpback whales that frequent this region but it was still an incredible day!
Down the main street of Tadoussac
After the whales it was back on the road again to St Simeon where we took the ferry over to Riviere-du-Loup. After taking in the Parc du Chutes and seeing a few bands in the street for a festival that they had on we moved on to Rimouski. Just out of Rimouski is the Parc du Bic, one of my most favourite places in Canada. While we were there along the stunning, rocky coastline, we were fortunate enough to see a fox wandering around where the people were eating their lunches. At one point it pounces into the bushes and arises with a mouse caught in its mouth. He went over and buried it in the amphitheater for later. Very cool to see.
Mouse-hunting fox in the bushes at Parc du Bic
The next stop was St. Anne du Monts, hands down one of the coolest places I have stayed in the world let alone Canada. We set up our tent on the beach at the hostel and then had a chill out session in the hostel hot tub that sits outside overlooking the ocean while watching the sun set. It was a great place to just laze about and have relaxed days and evenings however the bar can lead one astray and you might be finding yourself getting to bed as the sun comes up as it is too easy to sit around talking to new people in spas and hammocks.
The view of the beach from the hot tub at St. Anne-du-Monts
The following day was to be a huge one for me. I had been in Canada for almost two years and was yet to see a moose. It was my day. We were hiking through the Gaspesie National Park and chattering away down the path when all of a sudden I gasp and come literally face to face with a moose. It is about two meters away from where I am standing chewing down on a leaf. Behind it (thankfully) was its baby. For a good half an hour I stood there in awe. I named her ‘Lucy the Moosey’ and I took a million pictures. The word excitement didn’t even cut it! Eventually I had to say goodbye to Lucy and continue on my way before it got too dark, all the while, munching on the wild strawberries I picked from the path along the way.
Lucy the Moosey! Isn’t she pretty!
From here we drove to L’Anse Aux Griffon from the sea shack. It was bad weather again so we set up the tent and spend the evening inside listening to a spanish/latino band play music and hanging with the people. It was only a hop from here over to the Forillon National Park where we hiked the last 7 kilometers of the International Appalachians Trail to the Gaspe lighthouse. The path had some amazing flowers along the way and was just a beautiful trail.
The lighthouse at the end of the International Appalachians Trail.
The last stop of in Quebec was Perce. We hiked over the sandbar in the water to the Perce rock and I found a fossil there that I took home with me. I spent my last evening in Quebec foraging around for the abundant wild raspberries around the campground. This became a huge thing for me in my Canadian travels. I love berries, I love wild ones even more. From here it was on to New Brunswick… and so the journey continues….
Perce Rock
Chill out for the next installment in my travels across Canada….
At first it really annoyed me. The constant harassment in your face with people yelling at you ‘You want transport?’, ‘You go on moto?’, ‘Where you go?’. It wasn’t until I was in a car driving with a local for the day around to Tanah Lot and Uluwatu in Bali that I realised just how much of a game it is to them. I realized when our driver started yelling out of the car window to his friends ‘Haaalloooooo, you waaaannt transpoooort?!’ and then laughing. Then they would call him on his phone and they would laugh about it some more. The whole thing was just obscenely funny to them. And so I decided to make it obscenely funny to myself.
The first time I really decided to make it a source of entertainment was when I was drunk coming home one night from the Sky Garden Free Flow (two hours of horrendously bad, strong and free alcohol). They see me, go to open their mouths and before they can respond any I am all over it ‘Hey! You want transport? I carry you while I walk?’ They look at me like I am nuts, laugh and I keep going. And then I yell at cab drivers ‘you want transport?’ and they look at me strangely before they start laughing and so the game continues……
It became evident pretty quickly that as a westerner, it is expected that you don’t walk anywhere. I could have 100m to walk down a one way street opposing traffic flow and the locals would try and convince you that it is too far for you to walk and that they should take you on a 3km round trip around the block on their moto to save you having to walk 100m. The idea of walking anywhere is just absurd. The look of shock and horror on the faces of people when you tell them you are walking somewhere is priceless.
Take for example Baluran National Park which I visited on the east coast of Java. I got to the front gate, paid the entrance fee and asked about transport in and out of the park. They told me it was either motorbike or ojek. You weren’t getting there one way for less than $5 and I had all day to kill and a Mount Everest Basecamp to train for so I said to the guy, no transport there. I will walk in. He says to me ‘NO!!!! You can’t walk?!’ I said to him “Why not?!” He says to me, “You HAVE to take moto! It is too far! It is 15 kilometers!!” I laughed at him and said to him ‘It’s only three hours and it is flat. It is fine. I will walk’. The entire staff look at me like a mental person as I start out along the road. And sure enough, after 3 hours of walking I got there. And had a great time along the way being surrounded by butterflies and interacting with the nature around me.
Of the most entertaining times that we embraced the ‘Westerner’s Don’t Walk’ policy was when I got up at 3am to hike to the top of Mount Pananjakan for sunrise over the Bromo-Tengger-Semeru National Park. The lovely men outside the front of the hotel were trying to again convince me that 5km to the top was ‘too much’ and that I couldn’t get that far. I told them I walked 15km two days ago and I would be fine. They looked at me cautiously before also trying to convince me I needed a scarf and a hat because 15 degrees was also ‘too cold’. Ha! Try -40 in Canada… I am fine!
OMG! Look! I am walking overland through the Bromo-Tengger-Semeru National Park instead of taking one of those jeeps behind me that all the tourists take!!
On the way up I met a couple of cool guys I started walking with and between us we got to the viewpoint 1 for sunrise and then up to viewpoint 2 later in the day after the tourists had re-embarked their jeeps and had gone home. We found a stand of fried banana and I bought two, one for each hand. As the incessant questions ‘You want moto?’ started up, I had a stroke of genius. I said to them ‘No, I don’t need moto. Too fat from fried banana! Must walk!’ The women had a quiet chuckle. The men stared carefully at me as they were not sure as to what the correct response to a woman calling herself fat is and they said ‘OK’ and left us alone. So I employed this for the rest of the day. By the end of the day we had clocked up 3 mountain tops and approximately 25km of walking in around 13 hours. When I got back to the hotel and saw the men trying to sell me hats and a moto I told them where I had gone and walked the whole way. They looked like they were about to die of shock. And then they applauded me. Not a bad effort for a girl about to hike Everest Basecamp. I wonder if they will have me a moto to take me to basecamp…?
So it is about a week later that I discover why I have such looks of confusion on the faces of locals when I met a local in Sidoarjo who literally myth busted quite a few of my ideas. It turns out that fat in Indonesia is a compliment. If you are fat it means that you are healthy and rich and have lots of money to eat. On the contrary if you are skinny you therefore must be sick, having money problems, anxiety attacks, broken up with your significant other or have some other serious issue in your life that needs dealing with. Fat is good. As such, why would I want to be losing weight by walking….??? OK, I think now I understand.
The second thing that he pointed out was something that after about a month I started to realize all on my own…. it isn’t the westerners that don’t walk. It is the Indonesians. They literally can never be seen walking anywhere. They will ride a motorbike 100m down the road to the shop if it saves them from having to walk anywhere. The whole time I figured they were trying to convince me that I needed transport so that they could have my business because I am white and as such I must have money. But no. It turns out that again these horrified looks of ‘What? You are walking 15km?’ are sheer looks of concern given that this is not a concept they can fathom. Turns out that it isn’t the Westerners, but the Indonesians that don’t walk…..
So in the grand tradition of me, I started my zen week by rocking into the yoga retreat with a two day hangover, still wearing last nights’ make up under my sunglasses and hat and arguing with a cab driver who was trying to rip me off. Pretty standard entrance really. They showed me to my room, I got changed and I went to my first session. We started with meditation. My meditation went something like this “Shit! Did I have my ukulele with me in the room….? I don’t remember seeing it. Hmmm…. did I take it off the taxi? Fuck! What have I done with it? If I left it in the taxi then I am never getting it back cause the arsehole has probably sold it now to make up for the fifty baht he tried to extort from me that I wouldn’t pay him. Fuck fuck fuck! Ugh, I want to go check on it now but I have 2 fucking hours of this shit to get through before I can and I think this is going to kill me…..”. Time dragged along…. Anyway, I found my ukulele. I left it on the table with my water bottle that I also couldn’t find. Drunk brain has been hiding things again.
The evening was spent meeting people and going out for a shared dinner of amazing Thai food before heading to bed early. You see, there is sunrise tai chi every morning at 6am and I was getting up for it…. Why am I doing tai chi you ask? Because it is the only way to get fed before 10am if you are only getting up for the 7:30am yoga and I don’t think I can handle two hours of yoga unfed. Tai chi it is.
Morning tai chi
My early morning tai chi was actually pretty awesome. I think it is my favourite part of being here. It is kind of like a martial art form in many ways and takes me back to my days of doing kung fu. In the mean time you have the most amazing sunrise going up over the sheer -cliffed mountain islands in front of you. It is quite incredible. And so we are standing there listening to a speel about how the sun is energy and the sun and the earth create this energetic ‘magnetic’ field around you that shields you from evil things and thoughts and that the more you do tai chi, especially in the mornings, the bigger and greater your magnetic protection shield of energy from the sun becomes. I felt like a kid in class who wanted to put their hand up and say…. “ahhhh, the sun has nothing to do with magnetic fields because it is a giant ball of frickin gas. Gas has no magnetic properties. The earth however has a giant core of iron which has unpaired electrons in its orbitals, thus creating a magnetic field due to the accumulative spin of these unpaired electrons….. Last time I checked a human does not have giant iron cores or currents of electricity running through them with the exception of the small electrical impulses running through nerves but this is not enough to give a person a protective fucking magnetic shield around them from the evils of the planet!” Yeah I was that kid. Deep breath, heed my friend Rachel’s warning about keeping my mouth shut, say nothing, laugh internally, cry internally. Go to first and more vigorous morning yoga sessions.
Sunrise on the beach during morning tai chi
I can say four things from this. 1. My hips are horrible. 2. My balance is horrible. 3. My lack of patience is even more horrible. 4. At least I still have my sense of humour. At one point we were doing this stretch where you take a wide stance and then put your chest to the floor. You then get your partner to pull your hands through your legs to give you a deeper stretch. So you literally wind up with someone’s arse in your face while you are assisting. And we are all sitting around talking about how it ‘feels’ to do a partner exercise and how you really need to ‘trust’ the partner helping you and it is all about trust. I was thinking ‘like yeah, I am trusting you not to fart in my face. Awesome’.
And so it rolled on as I sat during the day in my hammock jamming on my ukulele, swimming a bit and being all round chilled. I listened to the Australian news, got mad about politics again and before I knew it, it was time to go back to the afternoon yoga session.
It is hard to know whether to laugh or cry when your instructor is being so introspective that she can’t figure out whether she likes the inhale breath or exhale breath more, but what I did know was that I wanted to find and steal her drug stash. After a myriad of stories about ‘Daddy’ I was about done and happy to retire for the day.
And so my days here continued. Get up, tai chi, two hours of yoga, breakfast, steal left over breakfast and hide it for my lunch, afternoon nap, play ukulele, go for a swim at high tide, more yoga, go out to dinner. I did meet some pretty cool people here, some of them as rational as I am. One friend and I sat there and giggled up the back like naughty school children which is funny because we are both teachers. It is hard not to laugh at times with some of the things they say. So they say ‘it is time to go into plough position (oddly enough lying on your back with your legs all the way over your head). “It is not recommended that menstruating women do this position”. Of course nobody wants to admit to this and we all do it anyway and I am up the back chuckling so hard I can’t stop shaking, “hear that Pat? No ploughing on your period, hahahaha”. Laughing so hard I can’t even plough properly.
My favourite yoga position…. apparently meditation. I call it ‘nap time’
There were some moments I wanted to stab my own brain out with a fork it hurt that much. I think one of the worst initial times for this was during “froggy” which I used to do at Crossfit as a hip opener so I knew what was coming. Ten minutes later and we are all still sitting in this excruciating position and I am having subtle suggestions sent my way that yoga is about stillness and I am tapping my feet, tapping my hands, moving my head and being an all round ADHD child. Stillness with circulation issues…? Stillness when my process of dealing with pain is to divert it with movement….? Not happening.
By day 6 I was on the brink. I had been rock climbing the day before and my body hurt. I was tired as I hadn’t slept properly in days, constantly having bad dreams and waking multiple times through the night (apparently the yoga is spiritually stirring something up in me emotionally… hmmm… how about frustration as an emotion?) I was also hungry. And then hungry turns to angry for me. ‘Hangry’ as I like to call it. As I am sitting in this circular meditation and I think everyone could see on my face that I was done that morning. I did not want to listen anymore about how my head has a satellite dish on top of it that is channelling ‘spiritual Google’. I did not want to ponder what the self is and how to reach enlightenment. Instead of all the ramblings about “checking in”, I was “checking out”. I just wanted to go to Nepal and hike a goddamn mountain. I was done here. And yet I was not done. I still had four more sessions and 8 more hours of yoga left to go before my departure and as shitty as I was, stubborn me was determined to see it through because I had paid for it already and because I knew that physically it was still strengthening my body for my upcoming adventure.
Rock climbing on Koh Yao Noi
On day 7 I started to be a little more relaxed. The instructor for the day would challenge us to think about the morals of stories from Greek mythology or stories from Rumi and it was way more interesting than most of the other sessions as it worked my brain in a way that didn’t make it want to die from the silence. I realised that over the space of the week I was challenging whether you can be non-spiritual and still manage to incorporate some these techniques into your life, especially when everybody has different interpretations.
On my last day I got up and watched the sun rise over my last tai chi session. I had my last session of yoga for the morning and was happy to be up the back with the girls hunched over in forward fold laughing ridiculously at the instructor who told us to ‘start to feel places on your body that haven’t been touched for a while’. It was the most unmotivated session I had had all week but I guess that happens when you can smell the end.
And so I survived. I have three days now until I get to Nepal. And what I take with me is expanded lungs, stronger knees, ankles and back, and a whole bunch of new friends who kept me sane for the week. Not anywhere near as bad as I had suspected, but I am pretty sure I won’t be checking back into a yoga retreat any time in the near future. I think I will stick with punching things and lifting weights.
“The head is the general and the body are the soldiers.” – Gezrat, My first boxing coach.
Everybody goes on and on and on about yoga and how amazing it is for you and how it is the thing to be doing if you are a zen and awesome human. Truth be told, I wouldn’t know zen if it bit me on the butt. The last yoga class I attended was hot yoga. I was in a bad mood after receiving some bad news, the instructor was brazen and rude to me, I swore I would never go back because I don’t need to be bored and offended all at the same time and so I haven’t.
It is an odd thing. People think that because I travel and am somewhat reflective that yoga would be right down my alleyway. Even my ex, after I ditched his cheating arse, figured I would make my way to a yoga retreat to ‘heal’ and ‘find myself’. Where I did ‘find myself’ instead was singing karaoke whilst dancing on a bar top shotting tequila and getting showered with cans of whipped cream in San Pedro La Laguna. Even I wonder sometimes how it is that I cannot manage to come to peace with such an activity. I love other physical activity. I box, I enjoy CrossFit, I really love hiking. And people tell me that they guess this is my way of ‘meditating’. I ‘meditate’ so hard sometimes when I am training that by the time I am done I want to puke into a bucket and that is what I define as ‘exercise’. Any form of exercise that I do not find hard is not defined as exercise in my book, especially when I am not even breaking a sweat.
So I finally figured out why this whole yoga thing is such an issue for me. I was born a fighter. I have spent my entire life arguing and screaming at my family members. It is in my second nature to be passionate, feisty and aggressive. It is why these activities such as boxing, CrossFit and hiking are among the things I love. They are a war between the head and the body. The brain being the general gets to tell the body what to do. No matter how much it hurts, no matter how much you think you can’t, you do because that is what you have to do. There is no time to be bored when you are engaging in something so difficult that you need to place all of your focus and mind power into keeping on going.
Yoga on the other hand requires the body and the brain to work together in some kind of harmony that I am unfamiliar with. One must work with the other to find this inner peace that people talk about. I am so engaged and used to the internal war that I love winning (because who doesn’t love winning, right?) that I haven’t yet figured out how to win the war by shutting the fight down. And so this becomes my next challenge. To those of you who laugh at me and tell me it cannot be done, my next challenge is to quiet myself. To fight the inner struggle of boredom and excessive thought. To let the mind be the general, still in control of the soldiers that are to stand at ease and do nothing. Let the games begin….. and shall I not die of boredom, yell at someone and tell them where to go or have a total mental breakdown from my own rapid and erratic thought processes during the week I am interred. Peace out! Namaste!
To see how I deal with my first ever yoga retreat, check out next weeks post!
Undoubtedly one of the most spectacular places I have ever visited is the Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park in Indonesia. I arrived on the shuttle bus late after driving through the dark hills around the bends up towards the township of Cemero Lawang. I checked into the Cemara Indah Hotel and got an early night as the trekking was to start at 3am the following morning.
As I woke up, dressed and headed out into the ‘chilly by Indonesian standards’ weather, I was greeted by some locals outside selling hats and transport. They were trying to convince me that five kilometers was too far to walk up the hill to see the sunrise and as such I needed to take a jeep. They were also trying to convince me that despite my layering in gear I am taking to Nepal for my basecamp hiking, that I was going to be waaaaayyy too cold and needed to buy another jacket, a scarf and a hat from them. I laughed, told them no and that I would be fine and started my way along the road in the dark alone towards the top of Mount Pananjakan with my head torch.
About half way up the hill I met two guys, Roland, a 60 year old from Italy and Ciaran, from England. While we bonded over cup noodle breakfast and their horrendous coffee, we decided that we would all go walking together for the sunrise.
The beginnings of sunrise over Bromo. Excited, but still can’t see her yet!
And so up the hill we went. We arrived at the View Point 1 eventually after taking a bush trail up from the road and sat to watch the amazing sun rise over what was to be my first glimpse of the mountains since I had arrived. They weren’t to disappoint. The view was crystal clear and as far as the eye could see across the valley. Batok stood out right in the centre as the near perfect conical shape with ripples down its sides. Bromo to the left chugged with its smoke up into the atmosphere. The stunning Semeru sat in the far background casting an eye over all of the rest of the mountains with its tall chuffing summit. We took pictures for a long while before heading up to the summit of Pananjakan after all of the jeeps with the tourist brigade had left to go down into the valley. It meant that we had the entire summit to ourselves and it was blissful as you could see the entire way around the area as Pananjakan is the tallest mountain in that vicinity besides Semeru.
And there she was….. Batok in front, Bromo off to the left side and Semeru in the distance peeking over the back
We made the rookie error of underestimating how far we would have to walk before entering down into the valley. The hill just kept on going and going and going and eventually a jeep stopped and offered us a free lift down to the base of Mt Bromo on the valley floor. We jumped in and drove a couple of kilometers the rest of the way down before walking out of the valley to go and get breakfast. The day was still young, it was only 9am and there was still plenty more adventuring to be had.
From the valley floor, Batok going up to the right, and Mount Bromo straight ahead with its blown out crater
I don’t think I had eaten that much in ages as I chewed down two bowls of rice, a bowl of noodles, a stack of fruit and two cups of tea. Then it was back out again into the crater.
The first mission was to get up to the crater rim of Mount Bromo. Along the way we met some locals who wanted to take pictures with us so after that we walked with them up to the top. Bromo was spewing a whole bunch of smoke out and it was a beautiful reminder of our insignificance on this Earth. It is so much more powerful than you or I and has the ability to destroy rapidly what we have spent generations achieving. I never fail to be in awe.
Giant hole to middle earth… just wow!
After we trotted down the side of Bromo there was debate about whether we should try and climb Batok also. It is the steepest and hardest climb of the three mountains but we decided to go part of the way and see how it was. Of course part of the way turns into massive rock climbing and “well we have come this far so screw it we are going to the top!”
Mount Batok with the Hindu temple in front.
I am incredibly glad that we did as the views from here were just spectacular. The summit was a giant plateau that you could walk around and it gave you 360 degree views of the entire valley floor if you walked around the top. We stayed here until the sun was about set before scampering down to the bottom and then back along the valley floor to the hotel at about 4:30pm.
The other side of the valley as seen from the top of Mount Batok
Our day was nearly 14 hours long, 3 mountain summits and about 20 kilometers of walking later. But as stuffed as I was from all of the hiking, I was also super excited and relaxed. It was one of the most incredible days of hiking that I have ever done. It is hard to not be impressed by the stunning views that this area has to offer.
OK, so I survived. After waking up in the morning to the phone buzzing off the hook I did the standard birthday checks. Any more wrinkles? Not that I am aware of. Have I become more sensible? Clearly not given my mothers’ Facebook plea to come home one day. Do I have any idea what I am doing? No. Quarter life crisis averted. I am clearly still in one.
Early morning birthday wrinkle check.
It is one of those things that I have watched friends go through. Some ignore it, some have festivals that last for an entire month in aid of their birthdays because it is a grand excuse for a party, some freak out and do something extreme. I prefer option A. I always have done. There is something that makes me uncomfortable about people making a fuss over me for my mere existence. In fact I tried to rename the whole day after my mother because I believe she deserves more credit for pushing me out and dealing with the last thirty years of my shit than I do for my mere existence.
So anyway, discomfort about birthdays and people making a fuss aside, I decided to go and visit the elephant park in the morning and hang out with the elephants. I got to go and sit on one in the river and bathe her and I also go to go for a ride on another one later too. I also got to feed her some bananas and she slobbered all over my arm affectionately as her trunk kept grasping for more and more bananas to contribute to the 400kg of food a day she needs to eat so live. Despite adoring elephants, they are my favourite animal, the whole activity made me really sad. The animals despite being seemingly well cared for have this really sad and sorrowful look in their eyes. They had no spirit or want for play that I expected they would have or remembered the elephants that I was with five years ago had. I stood staring into the eye of my elephant for quite a long time. She stared back at me sadly. We had a moment of understanding. But I can’t do anything to help her. So I told her I was sorry and I left. I don’t think I will ever go back again. I feel too guilty about how sad she seemed. She would have been happier in the wild.
My 55 year old elephant. If I make it to 55 I am retiring… again… poor and yet beautiful creature
After arriving back into town I went to get a Thai massage. I normally cry through these, but today I slept through it as my phone started buzzing at 4:30am and woke me up and I couldn’t get back to sleep. I was super tired by early afternoon. My massage was proceeded with a Thai red curry for dinner at 4 o’clock followed up with a banana roti pancake and then rushing back to put my laundry on and watch the latest released episode of Arrow. (Yes, even those living a life of luxury can’t avoid laundry).
Who couldn’t use a banana roti pancake?
Despite my phone being off the hook constantly, I still feel like it is just another ordinary day on the road. There has been nothing special, nothing out of the ordinary and certainly no freak outs about age…. oh except for that minor melt down I had about governments globally telling me I am in my last year to get working holiday visas and so I am freaking about timelines for that. Once that ends I am going to have to do a serious life evaluation. But otherwise. Still the same old me. And not much of ridiculous debauchery and party times to report…. hell maybe I am getting old…… 😛
So tomorrow I turn 30. Whatever. People tell me this is a huge deal but for the most part I tend to negate any thought processes of the day whatsoever. I find myself spending my 30th in Asia. The exact same way I did five years ago on my 25th birthday…… Oh the 0’s and the 5’s. Somebody just take them away please!
Today was up and about and downstairs for breakfast where there was a string of happy birthdays. I don’t know why, but I hate it. I hate having a fuss made about me and I don’t know how to deal with it graciously. Instead I deny that it is my birthday and get on with the day’s proceedings. They firstly consisted of a motorbike tour.
My driver spoke very little English and I was a little disappointed because some of the others had some real characters driving them around. Harriet’s driver would bounce her up and down on the bike when they were stationary, and Kat’s tried to hit on her despite being married already.
My polite, lovely and sensible motorbike driver
So they drove us through all of the back streets of Hue and through all of the rice fields watching the locals pick the rice and work on the harvest. There were also locals washing clothes in the river and fishing. The first stop was to see how the rice is processed to what we see it as in the supermarket.
Driving beside the rice paddy fields
When we arrived there were a whole bunch of kids on bikes and they were hanging around being really cheeky. They were being pains in the arses really and the old lady and the tour guide yelled at them and told them to leave. They didn’t though. So we watched her sift off all of the husks from around the rice grain, and then we watched her ground it up to make rice flour. It was really cool.
Local Vietnamese woman demonstrating the processing of the rice to rice flour
On the way back to the motorcycles, I met Lieu, a 75 year old local woman famous around the regions for her palm readings. I wanted to just sit and chat to her but she convinced me in the end to read my palm. What she told me was quite interesting, although I would hazard a guess to say that they were more based on her personal experiences and with what she saw of me than what my palm said.
She told me that I was 25 (good guess) and that I have a very beautiful mother (looking at me, quite an educated guess… but then maybe not in my disheveled ways….) and that I have trouble for a father (what can I say? Another very good guess). She told me that I would live until I was 85 (most likely a guess, have no idea, won’t find out for 60 more years). She said that I would marry when I was 28 (I now know to be a false estimate… I will be lucky to be married by 38 at this rate) and have 3 children (hahahahaha), two boys and one girl. The first child would be born at 29 (hahahahahahaha yep, pretty sure that didn’t happen without me noticing) and the next one’s would come ten years later. I will marry an American (she later tells me that she married an American) and that he will love me very much but he will be working so often that I will turn to the drink (cause I am totally addicted to the drink) and other men (who knew I was capable of having an affair?). Apparently I will have boyfriends when I am married (cause I have a whole bunch now when I am single…). A nice young one to go with my workaholic husband(???). Sweet. I laughed my arse off when I left, asked to have my picture taken with her when I left and she agreed. I wonder if it was written in my palm that I was only interested in having a picture with her?
Getting my fortune told with Lieu
So anyway, after that heartwarming little conversation, I hopped back on the bike and headed towards Thuy’s house. Thuy was deformed from birth and only has one hand. With her stumpy arm and her other hand, she makes the most amazing conical hats. She showed us how to make one when we got there. Her hats are special too because they have shadows of a pair of lovers, the towers and the bridge in Hue as well as her name. She does this by inserting a layer of newspaper in between the straw that she ironed out and placed around the ribs of the hat. It was pretty cool really. Kat bought a hat and has been wearing it all day.
Pressing the straw to make the conical hats
From here it was off to the place where they make the incense sticks. They mix together a large proportion of sawdust, glue, sandalwood powder and fragrances and then make a big ball of goop. They roll he goop over the bamboo sticks and then in some more sawdust so that they don’t stick and then they lay them out in the sun to dry. There were incense sticks everywhere lined up along the road. It was unbelievable. One woman can crack out about five thousand of those things a day.
My friend rolling and incense stick
Afterwards we headed to the pagoda to check out what was going on there. We saw the large tower built at the front of the grounds and the car that the monk drove all the way to Saigon to set himself on fire in protest of the poor treatment of the Buddhists. After seeing this we got on the motorbikes and got dropped back at the supermarket down the road from the hotel to do some shopping for food and to have some lunch. It disgraced me that for the first time since leaving home, I ate KFC westerner food shit fried chips. I am in Vietnam, I should be enjoying traditional food, however the others all wanted fast food so I tagged along. I just don’t get it. I never did, I don’t know if I ever will.
After about an hour wait at the hotel, we took the bus to the train station where we waited for another two hours because our train was delayed. Not bad, sleep in tomorrow morning. So when we finally got on I found my cabin and threw my stuff on the top bunk. I got up and sorted my stuff out and then started to read. Then all the questions came about birthdays. Why do I hate celebrating mine and is it OK for the others to make a fuss. I said whatever and next thing that you know there is a group of people filing into my room and sitting on the bottom bunks and they started to sing happy birthday. I covered my face with my book mostly so that they couldn’t see that I was on the verge of tears. They just kept getting louder and louder and I wanted them to stop. So when they were finally done, I was graced with presents. I got a 4-pack of Tassie Devil yoghurt, a calendar with all of the pictures from the man’s restaurant that we were at last night and a purse made out of black silk. Kat also organised a card for me that everybody signed. It was kind of cool, and I behaved graciously, I was thankful that they went to the effort. I honestly would have been happier forgetting all about the day really because I don’t know how to be gracious in the face of people making a fuss of me.
And so we forgot quickly with the coming around of the cabin trivia. There were some really challenging questions and Flo, Alex and I cheated by using our guide books and the book that Flo is reading about Turkey. We came a tied first place and I think that they want to have a showdown tomorrow sometime. Again, I am not really fussed. But it would be interesting to see what happens when people are not allowed to cheat. We will most likely lose terribly.
It is pretty quiet on the sleeper train at the moment, Natalie the guide, is reading and I am typing here in my fleece jacket because the air conditioning is freezing in these cabins. I am pretty tired so I will most likely just go to sleep soon. Not much else to do on the sleeper trains, and plenty of time to kill.
And so in the grand tradition of birthdays I shall hide somewhere and not tell anyone. Last year I sat at my friends house in London and ate a wheel of brie while watching the Ken Ham vs Bill Nye debate on Creationism vs Evolution. An amazing day for me! The original plan for the 30th was to be on a 16-day trek somewhere in Nepal so I would really not have to deal with it. But, if anything exciting does happen, I will be sure to let you know all about it.
OK, so for any of you who know me personally, you would know that last time I was travelling I used to put a weekly post up on my Facebook called ‘Shit I Learned This Week’. It was a combination of funny and serious facts that I learned along the way that I wanted to share with people. As ordinary life and the monotony of working and then going to the gym set back in, I got lazy and let it slide as it became harder to come up with creative things I had learned. However, back by popular demand on my Facebook page Thomas Takes On… (chuck us a ‘like’ to keep in the loop) is “Shit I Learned This Week” and as a part of this continuing tradition, I shall reinstate it with a special post about “Shit I Learned In Indonesia”.
Shit I Learned In Indonesia
Useful Indonesian Words
Doso (doh-zoh) – “high five” useful for saying hi to or scaring small children. Some will laugh and slap your hand, other will scream and run yelling “monster, monster!” in the other direction.
Kontol besar (con-tol be-sar) – “big penis”. Men down the street will occasionally tell you that they have one of these for you. You shouldn’t believe them. They don’t really.
Capek (cha-pey) – “tired”. Even when you use this word it still won’t prevent police officers waking you up on the train just so they can say hello to you because they want to practice their English. And here I thought I was getting woken up because I am doing something wrong…..
Bule (boo-lay) – “white person/foreigner”. The word most commonly shouted when both adults and children alike see you and start pointing at you as if you are a crazy anomaly in society. It will usually be accompanied with the word “foto”.
Foto (foh-toh) – “photo”. Avoid this word at all costs. It will mean that you will spend an hour standing on the side of the road while locals take pictures with you and of you like you are some kind of celebrity. Then if you say no, they will still follow you and take pictures of you while you are not looking. Akin to Kim Kardashian, you are famous for doing absolutely nothing.
My blonde friend getting swarmed by a kazillion Indonesian people and their phones saying ‘foto? foto?’
Ayo (aye-yoh) – “lets go!” Useful for getting a boot up peoples butts and to get moving.
Tidak (tee-dah) – “no”. Despite being a word in the Indonesian language, this word seems not only to be ignored, but magically most of the time translated into the word “yes”.
Kamu cantik (cam-oo chan-tee) – “you’re gorgeous/beautiful”. Frequently used by local men when you walk past them down the street or are sitting on the back seat of buses as their opening line to chat you up. Usually it is followed up by the question “you marry?” to which the appropriate answer is always “yes”.
Mas (maas) – “bro”. The men here will usually say ‘hallo mas!’ or ‘terima kasih mas’. I need to remember that while ‘mas’ in spanish means ‘more’, that I am saying ‘thanks bro’ in Indonesia instead of ‘thank you very much’. Especially when I am talking to a woman and she looks at me confused as I just called her ‘bro’.
Coca Cola Batik (koh-kah koh-lah bah-tik) – “Fake art work from Yogyakarta”. The local style of art, ‘batik’, involves covering material with a wax and then dying the bits left over. If it is real they say you can wash and iron it to keep it good. Sometimes locals will lie to you and sell you the fake stuff that the dye runs from when you wash it. I am not sure what Coca Cola has to do with this….
My real batik art, not the Coca Cola crap 🙂
Culture and People
If you ask how far or how long something is, do not expect an accurate answer. Concepts of time and distance are pretty much non-existent in Indonesia.
Everybody smiles. They can be happy, mad, angry, sad… any array on the emotional spectrum and it will always be delivered with a smile. As such, when angry the best way to deal with things is to smile and be polite. Passive aggression will get you everywhere.
On top of smiles is the laughing. People are always laughing in Indonesia and the laughter is often infectious. Sometimes a local will be so amused by something that you do that it almost difficult to not laugh back at them as they are so funny when they are being funny,
This guy laughed at us and called my friend a ‘bludger’ despite not knowing what it meant and kept laughing for half an hour while we waited for the bus to Borobudur
Indonesians do not walk anywhere if they can help it. They will always take their motorbike. Even if it is 50m down the road, the will still go on “moto”.
Fat is a compliment. “Hey girl, you fat!” = hey, you have money and eat lots and are super healthy. I wish it was like this in Australia….
Say one thing. Mean another. Do another entirely. This is how we wind up having our passport in immigration for 16 days and not being notified of meetings. Then they tell you they have transport to immigration. Then they don’t. Then they do but you need your own helmet. Then they do again. And then they drive you to immigration and leave you on the side of the road there in the middle of nowhere because apparently transport to immigration does not mean transport home. This is also how you wind up homeless on New Years Eve as a ‘booking’ apparently can be given away if somebody with money comes in first and you aren’t there. Always be prepared for the unexpected. Always have your A game problem solving skills cap on or you will wind up in a pool of your own tears. Oh and laugh. Because what more can you do?
Passed out on the hostel floor on a pile of my junk over new years trying to have an afternoon nap and failing dismally
Indonesians have to be the friendliest people ever. I am trying to eat my bowl of bakso on the side of the road and a family invite me into their home to sit at their table to eat it and play with their kids… two hours later I am making my way out the door.
Politics and Religion
You will get woken up everyday to the sound of random warblings of Islamic prayer broadcast over giant speakers to the entire community. Earplugs required.
In Bali, one needs to constantly watch where they walk because not only will the gods be angry if you step on one of the offerings they lay out, but you will also wind up with massive soy sauce explosions up your leg.
Some Hindu offerings… no soy sauce this time, just some tasty biscuits and flowers.
Soekarno was the first President of Indonesia and was responsible for their independence as a country in 1945.
Indonesians will approach you and start listing religions and ask you which one you are. “I have no religion” is never met with a good response, usually anger or confusion. I later learned that according to the “Pancasila” (translated in Javanese to mean “five principles”), which was the document used to found the country of Indonesia and unite all of the islands, the number one legal requirement on this list of all Indonesians is “belief in the one and only God”. What this means…. 1. It is illegal to not have a religion in Indonesia. 2. You are only allowed to follow a religion that is monotheistic. The Balinese made a few adaptations to allow Shiva to be their almighty God allowing Hinduism to be a part of the list of only 6 religions allowed in Indonesia including Islam, Buddhism, Confucianism, Catholicism or Protestantism. No allowances were made for other religions such as Judaism, Sikhism or any of the spiritual beliefs of the smaller tribes from the more secluded islands that form Indonesia. Sounds scarily like discrimination to me……
Other Indonesian Learnings
“Hallo Mister!” is a common greeting from all people here. Their addresses to each other are unisex, so I always get ‘mister’. I exhaust myself trying to explain that I am a ‘miss’ because I am a woman. The last English lesson I gave was to a group of 7 kids of 8-10 years old cutting school and smoking cigarettes on top of the hill overlooking the Telarga Warna. They followed me down the hill screaming at me “Miss! Miss!” Well at least they learned something….
Bed bugs. After getting them twice in Java I am now a total expert in anything bed bug related. The Indonesian word for bed bug is ‘kutu busuk‘ and I am ‘alergi‘ or allergic to them. I know about hunting them, their life cycle, how to get rid of them and even that if you isolate and tape the bed they will climb the walls and drop on you from the ceiling to get at you and your tasty blood. Ugh, I am creeped out thinking about it and haven’t slept in a month.
Fried chicken here rivals that of Colonel Sanders (KFC) an is way cheaper… between these and cheap Magnum Gold’s I will wind up the size of a house and require rehab after Indonesia to deal with my withdrawals.
Yet another evening on the Magnum Golds… had to find another shop because we cleared the first one out.
I am ‘seexxxaaayyyy’ according to a 60 yo local woman on the bus to Wonosobo and this is apparently hilarious to everyone else on the bus.
And I think that shall be it! For the weekly versions (much shorter I promise) tune in to Facebook and I shall be back next week with more challenge and adventure (Si bolang!) Until then 🙂
Thomas Takes On.... 