Adventures By Design

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Wonder where we’ve been? Each of the icons on the map above shows a special place on our travels, and the green line shows our route. Click on an icon for a name and description too. You can also use the zoom buttons on the right side, and click and drag to move around the map.

Here are all our photos, arranged by country.

• Thailand (April 2-?)
• Malaysia (dates?)
• Indonesia (dates?)
• Singapore (dates?)
• Cambodia (dates?)
• Vietnam (dates?)

If you have any questions about, well, anything, leave us a comment. Enjoy!

Ric and Gin

In which the travelers pamper themselves

Today we leave Indonesia, bound for Singapore for a few days, then on to Cambodia to meet Jesse and Janelle. After a quick breakfast, we picked up our thankfully-unscented laundry, then returned to the hotel to pack. Once we were packed and ready we had about five and a half hours to kill before we’d get picked up to go to the airport. The question was, what to do? We didn’t want to get tired and sweaty walking around, so we decided to pamper ourselves by heading to the spa for a nice massage. (This was more Gin’s idea than Ric’s, but he came along too.) We left our bags with hotel reception and went to find a nice spa that would be able to give us both massages before we had to leave for the airport.

We found a great place, called Sang Spa, a little way off the main street. They had a package deal with a massage, body scrub, and body mask, for about $12. It would take about two and a half hours, and we’d surely be relaxed afterwards. Unfortunately, the spa didn’t have enough staff available right away, so we made an appointment for two o’clock, and left to find something to do for the next hour and a half. Hmmm… what to do? A manicure and pedicure of course! Again, this was Gin’s idea, but Ric came along and got a pedicure too, without nail polish.

At the nail salon we met a really interesting Dutch man named Jan (his website is here). He used to own a philatelic (stamp collecting) shop, but he’s been retired since 1981 (although he must have been quite young when he retired since he doesn’t look very old now). Since retiring, he’s done a lot of travel, and has recently decided to settle down in Ubud. He actually owns the lease on the salon, and has helped the women who run the salon to turn their lives around from desperate poverty and prostitution in Java, to owning and running their own shop, and having a great home. His help may be small-scale, but he’s changed the world for these four women.

We had to hurry a little from the nail salon to the spa, but with island time in operation, it didn’t really matter if we were a little late. At the spa we chose what varieties and scents we wanted for our body scrubs and masks, then settled in to be pampered. The massages were fabulous, as were the scrubs and masks. We think that the body scrubs may have removed part of our tans though, blast! After we rinsed all the gunk off ourselves we had a bath with flower petals in it, and drank some ginger tea. Finally we had to drag ourselves away, lest we miss our bus to the airport.

On the way out from the spa we met a very interesting Canadian man. He’s a member of the RCMP, and has been seconded to the UN Police Force to help with their operations in East Timor. Apparently this is one of only two places in the world (the other is Cote d’Ivore, if you’re interested) where UN police are armed, and actually operate as the only police force in the area. They aren’t just supporting or training the local police, they are the police. In the UN it’s called a Chapter 6 ½ mission, which is a logical title because it is partway between a Chapter 6 (‘negotiation and mediation’) and a Chapter 7 mission (‘forceful action’). He talked a little about what it’s like, and some of the challenges of his position. Sadly, we had to cut the conversation short to catch our bus.

We returned to our hotel to collect our bags, and jumped on our minibus to the Bali airport. Indonesia, despite being a country that we hadn’t originally planned to visit, has been wonderful to us, and we leave it with a firm intention of returning.

In which the travelers lounge.

Today is our last full day in Indonesia, we fly to Singapore tomorrow evening. Although we would have preferred to just hang out by the pool and read, we determined that we first had to complete three last-minute errands. First, we needed to get some clothes washed. Second, we needed to secure transport to the airport for tomorrow. Third, we needed to find an internet cafe so we could phone Mike and Renee (who we now know have changed their number), send emails (to Candice, Canadian International School in Singapore, Jesse and Janelle, and Nathan and Amy) as well as find a cheap hotel in Singapore. And cheap in Singapore is interpreted as anything less than $100/night (we found one for $96).

Finding a launderer was as easy as walking down the street for a minute and a half. Ready to be picked up at six o’clock tonight, pressed (and hopefully unscented). Finding transport to the airport was easy too. We just walked down the street until we saw a sign that said “transport to airport”. Five thirty tomorrow and a minibus should be waiting.

Out last errand was the internet cafe. But first, we popped into a dog clothes boutique where we met an excitable golden retriever named Christian. We looked around for a while, and finally found a soft and hopefully comfortable singlet shirt for Inca with the name of the Indonesian national beer silk screened on the back.

Missing our furry one terribly, we moved on to complete our final task: the internet cafe. We found a cafe that was super fast, but it was also super expensive. Usually in Indonesia internet is around 125-200 Rp/minute ($0.82-1.31/hour). This place charged 499Rp/min ($3.30/hour), plus a surcharge of $1/min to use Skype. We know that doesn’t sound like much by Canadian standards, but here $4.30 can buy lunch for two. We figure the business spent a lot of money upgrading its internet connection, and now it is trying to recoup its investment. But still, its prices seemed a tad exorbitant.

Our tasks complete, had a delicious lunch and then headed back to the hotel to lounge by the pool, followed by lounging in our hotel room. Feeling lazy from all that lounging, we ordered room service for dinner, and spent the rest of the night playing cards. It was a fantastic finish to a good day.

In which the travelers speak softly and carry a big stick

Leaving Kuta Beach was bittersweet: although it was one of the most touristy places we’ve been (its probably one of the most touristy places in the world), we were having fun playing in the ocean and learning how to surf (well, only on body boards so far). Still, it was time to go, and we’ve heard great things about how laid-back and relaxing Ubud is. Ubud is a small town about one hour’s drive inland from Kuta Beach and Denpasar.

Before our minibus had even stopped, several touts approached us, offering to take us to their hotels. We are getting better at not getting phased by their high-octane harassment, knowing that at best, touts can be beneficial (i.e. when you need a room, or directions). We hesitatingly agreed to follow one of them, although we made it clear that if the hotel wasn’t to our liking, we’d move on. The place he took us to had a pool and a double bed, but was still being built and so would be noisy in the early hours of the morning (the Indonesian work day starts pretty early. Further, the room was constructed in the traditional style where the walls and the ceiling have a large space between them. Although this allows for airflow, it also allows for mosquitoes to get in and dine on Gin’s tasty blood. Rejected.

The next place we visited looked beautiful, but we thought that it would be out of our price range. It had a larger pool, and immaculately-manicured gardens with large statues including Hindu gods, Komodo dragons, and monkeys with monstrous erections (this whole island seems preoccupied with penises: we thought about buying Ric’s mom, Marie, a larger-than-life-sized phallus key chain.). Rooms here ranged from $35 to 80+ per night, which was more than we wanted to pay. We started bargaining by countering with $20, knowing that in Bali prices are always negotiable, and keeping in mind that bargaining is an art form not a battle to be won. After some pleasant posturing on both sides, the hotel folks eventually agreed to $27, which we thought was fair given the cleanliness of the room, the size of the pool, and the serenity of the grounds.

We refreshed in our room, with our complimentary welcome drinks, then headed out to explore Ubud. We didn’t make it that far before we found a great cafe that served delicious mostly-organic food. Gin pointed out that we will have to come back, since she is determined to try one of everything on the menu. Many of the tables were flanked by cushioned lounging areas where folks could take off their shoes and curl up with a book (or laptop). They also had wifi, which is a selling feature with us, so we continued to upload photos and post some more blog entries.

After a satisfying lunch we walked around a saw lots of cool shops, mostly selling clothes, furniture, and large paintings. Since we’re trying to travel light, we probably won’t buy anything, but it is nice to window-shop.

We had dinner at an Indian restaurant, where Ric had homemade ginger beer; it was both much less delicious than he hoped, and much more yeasty than he expected. While we were eating we watched a pack of dogs outside fighting over the garbage that was in a large garbage can that they had managed in climb into. With their growling and yelping we remember how Thailand Tom had been bitten by street dogs, and wondered if we should find a large stick to protect ourselves. As we left, the dogs seemed mostly uninterested in us, but nonetheless several barked at us when we got too close.

We walked the rest of the way home, wary of the street dogs, and declining offers of “Taxi?” and “Transport?” every few meters. Tomorrow we may visit the Monkey Forest Sanctuary, after Gin cultivates her tan by the pool, of course.

In which the travelers waste their day without proof(s)

Today was our last day on Kuta beach; we’ll be sad to leave the ocean behind, but not the rampant commercialism that surrounds us here. Everywhere we go people shout out for us to visit their stores to buy sunglasses, sarongs, t-shirts, pirated DVDs, and everything else a tourist on the beach could possible want. Since it was our last day today we had a couple of errands to complete. First was laundry, where Ric attempted to get them to unscented soap by inventing mysterious skin aliments that plagued his wife (Gin was still beside the pool when Ric went off to take care of laundry alone).

The other errand was to get some business cards printed. As we travel we meet all kinds of cool people who we want to stay in touch with. We’re always scribbling down contact info on scraps of paper and old receipts, so we thought it would be great to have some nice, professional-looking cards made up. Ric had found a place just down the street from our hotel that said they could print up 200 cards for us for about $14, so we decided to give it a shot. Ric had spent the night before designing some nice cards with a cool font. In the morning, after bringing in our laundry he went to give the design to the shop. He gave them the file saved on a USB memory stick, was promised a proof in an hour, and went home to find Gin and wait. An hour later, we both set out to see what the shop had ready. Unfortunately, they didn’t have anything ready at all. Apparently they couldn’t open the file (a .pdf… who can’t open a .pdf?) so now they wanted us to print it, and they would make it from a print. Knowing that there was no way it could look as precise as the actual original design, we offered to email them the file and initially they agreed. However, the internet wasn’t working at the cafe we went to, and do the young man from the business card shop insisted that it would look great from a print. Against our better judgment we acquiesced, left a print with the shop, and were promised a proof in an hour (again). We went and killed some more time by the pool, wishing that this ordeal would just end so we could go surfing. Finally we went back to the shop and saw our proof. Although we appreciated the shopkeeper’s efforts, the cards looked nothing like the original: he had changed the font, and the solid block of gray was all banded and weird-looking. Disappointed, and immensely frustrated by having wasted the better part of our last day on the beach, we got our deposit back, and left without the business cards. Perhaps we’ll find a professional printers in our next stop, Ubud, or somewhere else.

We tried to shake off our disappointment and headed with Bryan and Emily to the beach for surfing, take two. We rented some more body boards, and headed into the ocean to catch some waves before it got dark. After the near disaster yesterday with Gin and the rip-tide, all four of us stayed much closer together and kept an eye on each other. At one point none of us could find Emily, so we stopped surfing and looked around for her. Eventually Gin saw her coming in from the shore; it seems a family from Java dragged her out of the ocean, surfboard in tow, to take photos with them and their 30 closest friends. Later, Ric narrowly escaped a similar photo shoot with the same family.

After surfing and showers we went with Emily and Bryan for one last dinner together, where we were also joined by Lauren, a dive instructor from Canada who’s looking for work in Indonesia. On the way home from dinner, Bryan pointed out several shops with very blatant signs advertising magic mushrooms. Somehow the rest of us hadn’t even noticed these. Though it seems like a booming industry here, we decided not to purchase any, and headed home to bed for our last night in Kuta.

In which the travelers avoid contracting E.coli

Our plan today was to go to a Cuban restaurant beside our hotel (yes, a Cuban restaurant in Indonesia, weird) for lunch and to get some work done on the blog. We chose this place because it had a nice atmosphere, the food looked good, and they had wi-fi, which sealed the deal. We placed our orders for lunch, which the server had trouble keeping track of, even though there were only two of us. Then we tried to get our computer to connect to the internet, but none of the staff in the restaurant seemed sure what the password was, or how to spell it. After trying different combinations of spelling and upper- or lower-case for 10 minutes our food arrived and we gave up. It’s really unfortunate that it wouldn’t work though, because this restaurant is right beside our hotel and we would have been able to scam their internet for the rest of our stay.

Unfortunately, our experience in this restaurant just went further downhill when Ric started eating his burger and realized that it wasn’t fully cooked. After he dissected it and assured himself that the meat was indeed pink and mushy, and it wasn’t just from the ketchup, we had to ask the (ever-so-helpful) staff for a new burger. They were relatively gracious about the affair, and we’re pretty sure that no one spat in Ric’s second burger.

After our disappointing lunch we headed to the internet cafe to get some work done. However, part of what Ric wanted to do was to download a program for the Eee Pc. Sounds straightforward, right? It would have been, except that whatever he put on the computer overloaded our rather limited memory and the whole system froze up. This has happened before, several times, and it’s getting rather old. Every time it happens we spend hours with a command-line terminal trying to erase files and make the damn thing work again. Usually in the end we give up and restore the factory settings. Restoring the settings is really easy, but getting all the other programs and customizations back is not so easy. Anyway, tonight we restored the factory settings again, and tomorrow we’ll be back at the internet cafe, fixing the computer…again!