The amazing acrobatic kids of Malapascua

After paying virtually no attention to wildlife in the previous 35 years, I’ve been amazed at how much my attitude has changed since I crossed the Pacific. I blame the Koalas. Ever since then I’ve been going more and more out of my way to find unusual things both on land and underwater.

Malapascua High Street

Seeing the Tarsiers had fulfilled my terrestrial cravings for the moment, but I was soon hungering after a fix of big underwater action – so I headed north, to Malapascua, one of the few places in the world where you can relatively reliably dive with Thresher Sharks. I say reliably, but in fact I’d met a couple of people who’d tried on several occasions and failed. Despite hearing this slightly dispiriting news, I was determined to give it a go – this could be a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Another lovely beach

When you’ve been traveling for a while, it really feels like everything worth seeing inevitable involves an early morning start. The sharks were no exception – best time to see them is early morning, so I was up at half five to get on the boat at six, for what would turn out to be the most boring dive I’d ever done. There’s one place the sharks hang out, so we descended, sat on the bottom, and waited. And waited. There’s pretty much nothing else to see, and the visibility’s not great. And so we waited for about 40 minutes, and then gave up and came back up. But I wasn’t disheartened. I’d been prewarned that my chances weren’t high, so I remained cautiously hopeful (if not entirely optimistic) for the next day.

Yet again we had a pretty early start, and the dive started very similarly to the previous one. But half way through our luck changed, and a big shark swam right past us – our guide reckoned it was up to 4.5m long (with half of that being the huge, characteristic tail), and we got a good look at it as it slowly went by. That was the only one we saw that day, but that wasn’t it for the show, for a few big devil rays soon turned up and flew around for a while. Not quite as unusual as a thresher, I know, but seeing the devil rays confirmed my view that rays are the most beautiful, graceful creatures in the sea.

It's all about the humungous tail

http://www.flickr.com/photos/deep-blue/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

With mission accomplished, I felt like I’d earnt a beach day. And I honestly could not have wanted a better place for that than Malapascua. The island is pretty tiny, and sits off the north coast of Cebu, right in the heart of the Visayas. It’s probably my favourite island so far – in part because it’s the friendliest place in what is already the friendliest country I’ve ever been to. Everyone stops and says hello, everyone wants to help you out, and even the people selling stuff are low-pressure, friendly and chatty, preferring to win you over with charm and humour rather than trying to bludgeon you in to submission.

It had to be done

So my day on the beach turned out to be great fun, as we chatted to the local beach masseurs, made friends with the local beach dogs, watched the local men pruning the palm trees (can’t have falling coconuts ruining a tourist’s holiday, can you?) but best of all befriending the local kids. The beach kids on Malapascua were absolutely adorable, and they fussed around, wanting to listen to ipods, clamber over you in the sea while you try and cool off, and chase you round the beach (OK, so the day didn’t turn out quite as relaxing as I’d hoped, but was probably all the more fun because of it)

They were saving the best til last though – just before sunrise they put on an amazing acrobatic show for us, backflipping and somersaulting and cartwheeling down the beach, throwing each other up in the air, fearlessly reaching heights I’d be terrified by. It was pretty amazing stuff and reminded me you don’t need to spend forty minutes under water in scuba gear to see cool stuff. After all that hard work, they didn’t need to work hard at all to sell us stuff afterwards – we bought them all sodas, and then parted with more cash for the shells they were selling. Despite now having a bag full of shells I’m not sure what to do with now, it was a small price to pay for such a cool show.

Getting ready for liftoff

Airborne

Soaring over the sun

The stars of the show

You can see all of my photos of Malapascua here.

Next up: The final stop on my wildlife-spotting tour of the Philippines – chasing after Whale Sharks in Donsol.

The adorable little Tarsier

You may have noticed that this blog has become increasingly monkey-obsessed of late, what with posts on the cheeky macaques of Bali, the amazing orang-utans of Sumatra, and the naughty Small Monkey in Palawan. If you’re not a fan, you’re going to have bear with me a little while longer, as travelling from Palawan to Bohol gave me the chance to see a rather unusual relative – the world’s smallest primate, the Philippine Tarsier.

Room with a view

Getting to Bohol is pretty easy – a short flight to Cebu City, two hours on a fast ferry and half an hour on a motorised tricycle and I was swiftly at home in a beautiful little room right on the beach, above the Genesis dive shop. Wreck diving in Coron had been fun, but I was looking forward to getting back to a more traditional coral and fish environment, and the reefs of nearby Balicasag island didn’t disappoint.

My second dive in particular was stunning – we came across a huge school of jackfish, swimming in very tight formation. As I swam in towards the school it parted around me and started swimming in a tight funnel with me in the middle. It was absolutely beautiful, and for a moment it felt like I was in a scene from the Blue Planet. The different experiences I have almost every time I go diving are incredible – deciding to learn as part of my trip is one of the best decisions I made.

Getting close to a school of Jackfish

With the diving out of the way (sadly, on a budget, I have to restrict my diving only to places that are supposed to be fantastic, and no more than two dives per location), I was free to explore the island a bit more. So with a few friends from the dive shop, we hired a driver and set off round the island.

If it was legal I would have stuffed my backpack full of the little darlings and taken them home

It all started pretty well, as our first stop was the Tarsier Research Centre, the easiest place to see (protected) Tarsiers in the semi-wild. Round the back of the centre is a fenced-off part of the forest. They are pretty damn tiny, but luckily the centre provides a guide who knows where the little critters like to hang out, and within a couple of minutes we came across the first one – and they really are tiny – about the size of a fist – and absolutely adorable. They sit there, gripping tightly onto tree twigs with their cute little fingers (proper big branches would be way too big for them) and staring at you with their enormous eyes – proportionate to their body size they are apparently about 150 times bigger than human ones, and take up most of the Tarsier’s head. They don’t do much, admittedly (being largely nocturnal) but hey, when you are quite that lovable then you can get away with it.

Things started to go a little bit downhill after that. We stopped off at a little restaurant / backpackers place nearby called Nuts Huts, planning to a little walk through the jungle down to some falls, but unfortunately the heavens opened and we were stuck inside for a while. The rain eased off for a short while, allowing us to run back to the car and on to the next spot, the famous chocolate hills. Someone at the national tourist board must have decided that the hills are the country’s most beautiful asset, as I’d seen them countless times on posters and postcards since being in the country. And they sure do look good in the pictures. Unfortunately I am unable to confirm how good they look in real life – as the whole area was covered in thick cloud, so instead of seeing a landscape of dozens of odd little green hills, tightly packed together, all we could see was the two directly in front of us. While we got soaked.

Rather soggy chocolate hills

After sheltering some more in the cafe, we were soon on our way to the last attraction of the day – the oldest church in the Philippines. Unfortunately some faffing about on our part in the morning, along with the intervention of the weather, meant that we’d overrun our schedule quite a bit, and got there only to find it was closed. And getting dark. So we gave up and headed back to the beach.

The Church of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception in Baclayon - oldest in the country

It could have been quite a disappointing day – but luckily my newfound monkey-love meant that seeing a few Tarsiers made it all worthwhile. All I have to worry about now is how to feed my addiction when I get back home.

For a change, rather than a nice sunset photo, here's lovely Alona Beach just before sunrise

You can see all of my photos from Bohol here.

Next stop: Malapascua, and attempting to dive with Thresher Sharks.

Cock Fights & Naughty Monkeys

Relaxing as it is to spend time diving, snorkelling and island hopping, even that gets a little strenous after a while (it’s a hard life), so it was time to leave El Nido for somewhere even more relaxing.

Port Barton beach

Port Barton lies on the coast of Palawan, about half way between the tourist centres of El Nido & Puerto Princessa, and as soon as I arrived I fell in love with the place. While the beach was lovely, the sea inviting and the hotel pretty comfortable, none was the best I’ve seen so far – and yet there was something indefineable about the place that had me feeling at home as soon as I arrived. It’s a bit harder to get to than other spots in Palawan, which serves to keep it considerably quieter – and that suited me fine. I practically had the beach to myself that first afternoon, and I the sleepy atmosphere of the place soon had me feeling as relaxed as I have anywhere on my trip so far.

If that had been that this could have ended up as quite a dull post – but the repeated sound of cocks crowing quickly roused me from my slumber. A short walk into town revealed what I’d suspected – a cock fight (which is pretty much the national sport). It wasn’t just any old cock fight either – I’d stumbled into the town on the final day of their annual fiesta, and they were celebrating in part with a massive all day event.

3 cock derby

I really don’t approve of animals fighting for sport – but despite that I was drawn in, and in turned out to be every bit as barbaric as I’d feared. The arena was a small, square patch of dirt, surrounded by benches packed with most of the village’s male population, frantically shouting and signalling across at each other as odds were altered and money quickly and confusingly changed hands around the ring. Soon, after a period of taunting and winding up by other birds brought on especially for this purpose, the bookies and the trainers left the ring, with just the referee there to set the cocks at each other.

Pretty soon it was all a blur, as the cocks flew round each other, biting away, and slashing away with the sharp blades strapped to one of their hind legs. That first bout was all over pretty quickly as one of the cocks was slit right open across its chest. It doesn’t even end in a quick, painless death as I’d thought – fighting cocks are pretty valuable, so unless they’re killed outright, a vet is on hand round the back to stuff the organs back in, sew them up, and send them on their way to recover, ready to fight again some months down the line. I didn’t stick around after that. Not my cup of tea.

Elsewhere in town I got to have a more entertaining animal interaction. The best (and friendliest) place to eat in town is Judy’s, so I headed down there for dinner with my friends, which turned out to be a fair bit harder than anticipated, thanks to the resident baby monkey (named ‘Small Monkey’). Apparently she’d been recently rescued after hunters killed her mother, and now hangs out in the restaurant, harassing customers (but getting away with it by being so small and cute). It’s pretty tough trying to eat when at any moment you risk having something stolen off your plate (which Small Monkey will then proceed to eat whilst sitting on your shoulder. Half of it normally ends up in your mouth, and the rest scattered through your hair and down your back). It was all pretty entertaining, but I do hope that they end up taking Small Monkey to a rehabilitation centre soon – she may be cute now, but she’ll turn into a real handful as she gets older (and anyway, entertaining as she is, it’s really not best for her to grow up around humans).

Entering the Subterranean River

Final stop in my trip through Palawan was Puerto Princessa and the nearby Subterranean River. Before I went to Palawan, this is the one thing I’d heard about the island, and it appears to be pretty agressively marketed as an attraction by the local and national government. It certainly deserves its fame – as the world’s longest currently navigable underground river it’s a very unusual attraction – but I must admit the boat road down the river was a little disappointing. Don’t get me wrong, it has some pretty spectacular formations inside, but ultimately it was just like being in a big cave, except with water underfoot rather than rock. I actually found the caving experience in Sagada much more fun (because it was more active, rather than passively sitting on a boat being rowed). I wouldn’t miss it if I was in the area and had time – but for me, the best bits of Palawan were quite definitely further north.

...and coming back out again

You can see my Port Barton photos here and my Puerto Princessa ones here.

Next stop: Tracking down the world’s smallest primate in Bohol.

Who needs Thailand?

Everyone’s seen pictures of the towering limestone islands of Thailand’s Andaman coast. It seems like most of the world has been there too. The similar landscape of Ha Long bay in Vietnam is getting almost as famous these days (in the UK at least especially thanks to the famous episode of Top Gear which ends up there). Before I arrived in the Philippines, I had no idea that a very similar landscape exists off the north coast of the island of Palawan – the many islands of the Bacuit Archipelago.

Getting there was a little bit of a mission – from Coron Town in Busuanga, there are supposed to be boats heading over virtually every day, but two of the boats were out of service. This meant rather getting a few days to relax and enjoy Coron, all I had time to do was a day of diving before having to leave the very next day, for fear of getting stranded. It turned out to be quite a journey – 45 of us crammed onto a pretty small outrigger boat, with no room to move around, for 8 hours. And a pretty choppy eight hours it was too, with every large wave showering all of us at the front on a regular basis. Yet again I was glad of my iron stomach, as others around me succumbed to seasickness.

The perfect way to see the islands

The journey was completely worth it though, for the Bacuit Archipelago more than lived up to expectations. The locals make it pretty easy to navigate around the many islands, by handily packaging them into three different tours, named A, B & C (and these are the same for all local operators).

Snake Island from above

First up was tour B, which started us off with a little spot of light snorkelling in crystal clear turquoise water just off one of the islands, which was pretty awesome. That was just a warm-up for the main event though – a stop for lunch at Snake Island, which is so named because of the thin serpentine slither of beach that winds its way out from the island towards its neighbour. It’s the kind of beach that looks like it could have been commissioned by the Philippine Tourist Board looking for perfect shots for postcards and brochures – and yet it’s 100% natural, and we had the place to ourselves to chill out for a couple of hours, while our boat crew made a delicious lunch of grilled fresh fish, chicken and pork – which was all a bit of a bargain considering the whole day-long tour including lunch came to around $10.

Snake Island

Lovely as it was there, we couldn’t hang around all day – after all there are hundreds of islands to explore – so soon we moved on to explore some fantastic caves on two nearby islands, each reached through a narrow entrance just off the beach, and then opening up to reveal huge, towering ceilings. Finals stop of the day was possibly the best yet – an island that consisted of a small beach clinging to the side of some imposing, towering limestone cliffs. The sand was the whitest and finest by far that I’ve ever seen, so much so that it was more comfortable lying directly on the sand than it was on a towel. With just the six of us there (oh, and the friendly island dog of course – even uninhabited islands have dogs here in the Philippines), it felt like we had a little piece of paradise all to ourselves.

Beautiful cliffs, clear water

After such a stunning day I was worried that repeating the experience the following day might disappoint – I needn’t have worried. For while Tour B gave me some of the finest beaches I’ve ever seen, Tour A took us to the best snorkelling I’ve encountered yet. Again and again we stopped at various spots with the clearest, brightest water imaginable, all framed beautifully by the sheer cliffs of the sheltering islands, swimming through narrow openings into warm, shallow lagoons crammed with coral and beautiful fish. All that snorkelling, swimming and generally gawping at the sheer beauty of the place can get a little tiring after a while, so the boat kindly took us to yet another perfect beach for a final bit of chilling – and even better, this one came with a nice surprise in the shape of a bar hidden away from sight behind the palm trees at the back of the beach. So the rest of the afternoon was spent sitting on the beach, sipping away at fresh coconut juice…and then moving onto the San Miguels.

Enrance to the big lagoon

The most amazing thing about the place is that for somewhere quite so stunning, it has remarkably few tourists (most of whom seem to be Swedish or Danish for some reason). I don’t mean it’s empty, but that there enough islands that it never feels busy in the way Thailand does. Get there soon before everyone else discovers it.

7 Commando Beach

You can see all of my photos of El Nido & the stunning Bacuit Archipelago here.

Next stop: Chilling out with a small monkey in Port Barton & exploring the Underground River of Sabang.

£14 to fly to Paradise

I was going to fly straight to El Nido in Palawan, but 6,000 pesos was a little steep – and then someone pointed out that it was only 995 pesos (about 15 quid) to fly to the island of Busuanga, just to the north of Palawan, and that made the decision for me.

I hadn’t planned to stop in Busuanga, but with flights so cheap it made sense, especially as it gave me the chance to try out some of the finest wreck diving in the world. For on one night in 1944, the US Air Force sank a huge fleet of Japanese ships that were sheltering in and around Coron Bay. Sixty years later, many of them are in relatively shallow, diveable water, and they’re the main attraction for those visiting the island.

Coron Town

Some other people I’d met told me that Coron Town was a bit of a dump – but I loved it. It’s certainly not going to win any architectural awards, but I loved its sleepy, ramshackle nature, and in particular the line of wooden shacks on stilts that jut out from the land into the bay. Quite a few of these operate as cheap hotels, and so I found myself sleeping in a hut right over the beautiful bay – for a mere 4 quid a night. Which is a bit of a bargain when you think how much that sort of thing would cost in somewhere like Tahiti (although admittedly with probably a tad more luxury).

The path to my hut

The morning after arriving I was up early to head out on a boat to dive two of the wrecks, the East Tangat wreck and the Olympia Maru, both of which were Japanese support ships, in around thirty metres of water. I’d already tried out wreck diving at the USS Liberty in Tulamben, Bali, but the reason I was so excited about these dives was the chance to actually penetrate the interior of the ships themselves.

On going in I was suddenly worried I wouldn’t get to see anything after all – I had a slight cold, and for the first time ever I had difficulty equalising the pressure in my ears – which would rule out going any deeper. For a few minutes I had to hover at around three metres while I tried and tried again, and then finally, luckily, I managed it. Panic over and I soon joined the others on the bottom as we headed towards the wrecks.

The outside of the wrecks were OK – there were a fair few fishes around, and lots of sponges and fans – but it was going inside that was the real fun. It was certainly the trickiest diving I’d ever done, as some of the entrances were pretty narrow, and it’s crucial to maintain good buoyancy control to ensure you don’t end up catching yourself on the edges. This is doubly hard because it’s quite difficult to perceive how much higher the tanks on your back extend – as well as to keep your legs level to stop them from catching at the back. I did OK, although a couple of times I got a little stuck, and I ended up scratching my legs a little on one of the narrower entrances. Luckily there were no deadly sharks in the area as I was slightly worried at the effect even a small amount of blood could have on any in the neighbourhood!

Difficulty aside, it was great fun, a bit like being in an underwater assault course, and it was cool getting to see things like the propeller shafts and the huge old engines. I can’t see myself ever becoming an obsessive wreck diver – I prefer the colours of the reefs and the large numbers of fish, as well as the freedom of movement – but I’m glad I did it and would recommend it to any divers traveling in the Philippines (especially as I understand the only place with a bigger collection of diveable wrecks is Truk in Micronesia, which is much harder to get to.
I would have loved to have spent a little more time in Busuanga, particularly to give the island hopping a go (which is supposed to be pretty spectacular), but sadly the boat schedule to El Nido meant we needed to leave the next day, or risk being stranded for quite a while longer.

Are you bored of my sunset pictures yet?

Never throw your flip flop in a cave

The sun finally emerged from behind the clouds just as we getting ready to leave Banaue for the spectacular three hour journey through the mountains to Sagada, giving us the opportunity I’d been waiting for: the chance to admire the scenery unobstructed by riding on the roof of a jeepney.

The rice terraces of Banaue

The ride was every bit as good as we’d been told, as the road wound its way up out of Banaue (and finally getting us the chance to see the town’s rice terraces in all their glory from the viewing point) and through the Cordilleras, passing dozens of beautiful terraces along the way (as well as field of vegetables that looked wonderful thanks to the heart that had been ploughed into its centre). Riding on the roof was pretty fun – but bloody uncomfortable. I won’t be doing that again – not unless I can find a cushion to sit on.

Aw, sweet

Sagada turned out to be a fantastic little village – richly forested, and with pretty houses ranged across the town’s various hills, valleys and atop cliffs. At a slightly lower altitude than Banaue, the climate was perfect too, with glorious blue skies and daytime temperatures that were perfect and without much humidity.

There was one main reason I wanted to visit the village – to see the famous hanging coffins. The people of Sagada have traditionally chosen to place their dead not in the ground, but either inside the many caves that surround the town, or more impressively, by hanging the coffins from the side of some of the huge cliffs in the area.

The Hanging Coffins of Echo Valley

It turned out they were just a short hike behind the church in the centre of the town, down into the valley, to a viewpoint looking right up at the coffins. It’s a truly bizarre sight, and quite impressive – but I must admit at the same time I had a slight tinge of disappointment, as for some reason (I have no idea why) I was expecting to see hundreds of coffins, and not the relative few that we got to see.

A rather unexpected highlight came the next day – I’d heard there were burial caves in town, but as we signed up for a tour, we had no idea what to expect. A half hour walk from the centre of the village took us down to the entrance of a huge cave, which was stacked up with dozens more burial coffins. That was impressive enough, but the best was yet to come.

The guides lead us deeper and deeper into the cave, leading us very carefully through narrow passages, and making us squeeze through some very tight holes as we headed down into the lower caverns. Some of these drops involved some fixed ropes, others required some quite nifty footwork to make our way down – but the whole way the guides were wonderful at making sure we never put a foot wrong.

Quite a tight squeeze

Inside the cave was spectacular – we got to see some massive caverns full of bats, loads of impressive rock formations like stalactites and calcified waterfalls – and the whole process of walking through was pretty fun too, as we switched between tighter passages to wading through pools of water, which caused a few problems for one of our group – instructed to walk barefoot, to get a better grip on slippery rocks, we were told to throw our flip flops to the other end of the cave. Matt threw just a little too hard, and they ended up soaring past the intended landing place, and straight down a vertical drop, never to be seen again.

Weird rock formation inside the cave

Eventually we reached the lowest point, a weird landscape of strangely shaped rocks and beautiful pools, and it was time to head back up – and emerge from an entirely separate cave from the one we’d entered through. We were underground for nearly four hours in total, and it was fantastic fun – I shall definitely be looking out for more caving tours in future.

Emerging into daylight

You can see all of my photos of Sagada here.

Manila made me a mallrat

Mallrats is one of my favourite films ever, mainly because it’s pretty damn funny, but also because it gives an insight into one of the those baffling American pastimes that mean little to a Brit like me – I mean, I couldn’t imagine why anyone would you want to spend all their time hanging around in a shopping mall?

Until I got to Manila. I’d already read it in the guidebook, but it wasn’t til I got my bus in from the airport that I realised quite how many malls there are in the city. There must be dozens. And some of them are huuuuuge – the biggest (the Mall of Asia) is apparently the third largest in the world.

I had no intention of spending any time in them, but on my first day I needed to pop in to the local one to get money out. After wandering around town a bit getting my bearings, I soon found myself sucked back in to get a snack (after all, they had a much bigger selection of food outlets than anywhere nearby). I don’t think I’ve ever been to a mall twice in one day before. I resolved to be more adventurous on day two.

Colonial building in Intramuros

I headed out the next morning to take a walk down to Intramuros, the old walled part of Manila. As it happened, the mall was on my way so I popped in for some breakfast (and my first taste of Filipino sausages: mmm). So much for trying to avoid the Mall. Anyway, I headed down to see some history, which took all of a couple of hours – I had no idea Manila had such a tragic recent history, as it was one of the world’s most badly damaged cities in World War Two, as the Americans and Japanese pretty much razed the city in 1945, killing over 150,000 people in the process. This tragic episode has left little of what was once one of Asia’s most beautiful cities. The huge protective walls are pretty impressive, and there are some nicely restored colonial houses, and even the World Heritage listed San Agustin church (nice as it was though, I’m not entirely sure why).

San Agustin Church

Fort Santiago

On the way back I found myself wandering into the mall without quite realising I was doing it, and for no apparent reason. Still, while I was there I popped into M&S for a quick look (just to see if it was exactly the same as back home – it was) and a coffee before heading back to the hostel, where I bumped into the people I’d met the night before, and soon found myself heading straight back to the mall (it turns out – of course! – that the nearest supermarket was located there) to buy some dinner to cook in the hostel. Three times in one day. What was happening to me?

On day three we had some time to kill before catching the nightbus up to the mountains, so we decided to have a bit of a jeepney adventure. Jeepneys are very much the typical Filipino means of transport – they were originally converted US army jeeps, but are now made in the Philippines, and have to be my favourite method of local transportation I’ve encountered yet, as they are painted in bright colours, covered in stickers, and plastered with various slogans (I’m such a fan there’ll be a separate post on Jeepneys coming up). We thought they looked pretty fun, and so we decided to just jump on one and see where it went – which turned out to be chinatown, which is full of your typically hectic asian market stalls (many of which were playing exactly the same ultra-violent chinese film, which people were glued to). Still, it was mostly tat, so after a bit of a wander, one of the girls needed the toilet so we soon found ourselves – where else, but the local mall.

Riding a Jeepney

Despite our best efforts to be in and out in five minutes, we soon found ourselves sucked in, trying out the local empanadas (very nice, but not a patch on Argentina’s), munching on chocolate doughnuts, and shooting hoops at the local arcade’s basketball game.

In the end I had to face up to it: I’d turned into a mallrat myself. And you know what? It turned out to be a lot of fun.

Indonesia Budget & Other Numbers

My wallet was looking forward to getting to Asia, as everyone had told me it was even cheaper than Latin America. And, I didn’t do too badly – food & drink were the cheapest since Bolivia, and accommodation was the cheapest yet. Or rather I should say, I didn’t do too badly as long as I stayed on the ground. Because my (inevitable) overspend was down to two things: one was flying between islands, and the other was the nine dives I did. One was pretty essential (ferry timetables aren’t always that helpful) and the other I wouldn’t have missed for the world.

The other big expense was that I treated myself to a brand new pair of (real, not fake) boardshorts to replaces the ones I bought in Miami and which are already a bit frayed from daily wear. They were particularly nice, if I do say myself. So nice in fact, that after just three hours of wear I hung them out to dry, from where they were promptly nicked while I popped out for a drink. At over $20 an hour of use, it was one more big expense I could have done without.

It’s looking more and more likely now that I’m going to overshoot on budget for the year – although it’s still only marginally. Here’s how the daily averages looked:
Transport: $10.66
Accommodation: $5.56
Activities: $14.88
Misc & purchases: $5.39
Food & drink: $18.44
Total: $54.94

In the seven months of travelling before Indonesia, I’d met a grand total of one Swede. That all change in Indonesia – the place is FULL of them. In fact, the 23 Swedes I met is the biggest concentration of people from one country since the 21 Americans I met in Guatemala. Bizarre. The total is enough to shoot them straight up into joint eighth place in the list of where people I’ve met are from, alongside the Dutch, who were nearly as ubiquitous in the country. The only new country added to this list in Indonesia was Hungary.

Sweden:23
UK: 20
Netherlands: 15
Australians: 14
Indonesia: 13
Germany: 8
USA: 8
Canada: 5
Finland: 4
France: 4
Switzerland: 4
Belgium: 3
Spain: 3
Saudi Arabia: 1
Brazil: 1
Hungary: 1
Portugal: 1
Austria: 1
Mexico: 1

And finally onto those other numbers. Being in the world’s largest archipelago was enough to see my island total shoot up. There’s also a new entry on the modes of transport front – after only being on a moped once in my entire life, they became quite a regular feature in Indonesia.
Beds: 21 (including one on a boat and one in a tent)
Cash withdrawals: 16
Phone calls: 10
Postcards: 2
Laundry: 5
Islands: 16
Dives: 11
Beaches: 8
Volcanoes: 3
Museums: 1
Buses: 16
Taxis: 14
Boats: 14
Mopeds: 15
Flights: 3
Kayaks: 1
Jeeps: 1
Cars: 2
Tuk Tuks / Bejaks: 4

Two Months in Indonesia – a Round-up

I planned my round the world trip around spending at least 6 weeks in certain countries rather than trying to rush around and do too much. Out of all the countries in South East Asia, Indonesia was the obvious choice to spend that amount of time in.

But apparently it was just the obvious choice for me. Out of all the places I’ve been so far on my trip, Indonesia was by far the least touristy (apart from one bit that I’ll come onto in a minute). And I find it completely baffling.

Batak Houses on Pulau Samosir, Sumatra

Indonesia is the biggest country in South East Asia, and has the fourth biggest population in the world. It has more volcanoes than any other country in the world, many of which are safe to climb. It’s home to the biggest lizard in the world, it’s one of only two places to see Orang Utans in the wild, and the forests of Sumatra also have the world’s largest flower. It has the best diving and surfing in Asia, and countless perfect beaches. Java has the world’s biggest (and possibly finest) Buddhist temple, as well as many beautiful Hindu shrines. The people are friendly, the food is good, and everything is pretty cheap. And yet most of the country is almost empty of tourists, other than Bali, Lombok & the Gili Islands. It’s as weird as if 95% of the foreign tourists coming to Europe skipped everything apart from Mallorca and Ibiza.

I’m guessing that people are put off by a combination of the natural disasters that have hit, lingering fears over terrorism (although that doesn’t stop them going to Bali) or maybe even the fact that with a country so big, it seems pointless when you only get a rather stingy thirty day visa on arrival.

Lombok Sunset

Still, it’s their loss, because I absolutely loved the country, in fact I ended up spending even longer than planned, with my eventual time there being nearly two months. There really were so many highlights, but I’d have to say that two stand out for me. First is the fact that Indonesia has the best sunsets I have ever seen. I’d never been a big connoisseur of sunsets before this trip, but some of the ones I saw in the Andes converted me. And they were nothing compared to the stunning shows the setting sun put on night after night.

Orang Utans in Sumatra

Best of all though for me was the wildlife. I’ve never been all that obsessed with plants and animals – historic cities, great beaches, and beautiful scenery normally impress me more – but Indonesia changed all that. I was utterly gobsmacked by what I’ve seen the last two months, including Komodo Dragons, Orang Utans, Manta Rays, huge Turtles and dozens of Reef Sharks, as well as various species of cheekly little monkeys. It’s given me a new-found appreciation of nature and it’s made me rethink some of my future travel plans to do more of that sort of travel in future.

It’s been a bit of a constant theme of these country round-ups that the locals are very friendly, but I have to say that I think the Indonesians have been the best yet. On several occasions I found myself wandering down the street only to find a local strike up a conversation – now this kind of behaviour instantly gets my traveller guard up in case they’re trying to sell me something, but more often than not they just start chatting because they want to talk to you and are interested in where you come from and what you think of their country. My only regret is that I didn’t make more of an effort to learn more Bahasa Indonesia (especially as it’s probably the easiest language to learn in Asia, with its simple grammar and lack of tones), as it really would have enriched the experience even more.

I just wish I’d had even more time there – Sumatra and Flores in particular were beautiful, and I only had a few days in each, due to having to rush before my visas expired, and I’d love to return to see more of them. I had planned to go to Sumba too, but Christmas got in the way, and so I never got to see one of the best-preserved traditional cultures in the country. And I didn’t even get to touch the northern chain of islands – Borneo, Sulawesi, Malaku & Papua – all of which sound fascinating and which I definitely want to return to some day.

So if you’re reading this and planning a trip to Bali – please think about seeing a bit more of the country. Bali is nice enough, but there’s really not much you can see or do there that you can’t see even better, even more cheaply, and without the crowds elsewhere in the country. Plus there’s so much more besides that you could never get to see in Bali alone.

Next stop is the Philippines, which I’m pleased to hear is also pretty uncrowded compared to the rest of South East Asia. I fear that Thailand & Cambodia, my probable final stops, will come as a bit of a shock to the system after this.

You can see all of my Indonesian photos here, and you can read all my Indonesian blog posts here

I wanna hold your (furry) hand

Lake Toba was a pretty lovely place to spend a couple of days chilling out, but I was really only in Sumatra for one reason: Orang Utans.

A couple of hours north of sprawling (and not particularly exciting) Medan is the tiny little village of Bukit Lawang. It’s a charming little place, but it’s not the village everyone comes to see. Sumatra is one of only two places in the world (the other being Borneo) where Orang Utans still live in the wild. Just outside the village is a national park that protects both the rainforest and the animals that live there; on the edge of it is an Orang Utan rehabilitation centre that has been so succesful that the park can take no more of the animals, with the result that a second centre has been opened up elsewhere.

With that many Orang Utans living so close to the village, it’s no surprise that a steady stream of tourists head to Bukit Lawang to trek into the jungle to see them up close (although with this being Indonesia, that stream of tourists is more like a trickle compared to the flood that would visit if it were in most other South East Asian countries).

First monkey of the day

So at eight thirty in the morning, I met up with our guide, Alex, and the group of seven others I’d be trekking with – unusually for Indonesia, they were all English. It took us just a few minutes from the hotel to make it into the jungle, and in no time at all we came across our first close contact with some apes – a troop of Thomas Leaf Monkeys. They weren’t shy at all, and the adult male of the group came down from the trees to have a good look at us (and pose for photos), whilst the kids crashed around the trees above, chasing each other round, swinging from vine to vine and performing rather impressive leaps from tree to tree. Being a young monkey looks like a lot of fun.

It was a nice way to start the day, but we all knew we were there for one reason only, and so we soon moved on to try and find some Orang-Utans. Soon we came across another group standing at the bottom of a tree in silence staring straight up – and we quickly realised what the spectacle was. Perched right at the top of a tree was an adult female Orang Utan in her nest, while her child swung around the tree-tops above her. Exciting as it was to see one, she was so high up, with the sun directly behind her, that it was pretty hard to get a good view.

Getting close to Mina

The day continued in a similar vein, with regular glimpses high up in trees, often obscured by branches, and moving away as soon as we approached. Trying to spot wild animals is always going to be tricky, but it was pretty frustrating all the same. Our luck was about to turn though: as we sat down to have lunch, another group came running past us, as they were trying to get away from the notorious Mina. We’d heard all about her – before she was in the rehabilitation centre, she had lived with humans and had no fear of them. In fact, we had more to fear from her, as she knows humans normally carry food, and she can be quite aggressive in her pursuit of it. So we quickly finished our meals and headed in the direction she was supposed to be, and soon found her. She made a beeline for our guide, who managed to placate her by feeding her bananas one at a time, but as soon as they ran out she started heading straight for us, forcing us to make a quick exit down a steep hill to escape. While they may be shorter in height than humans, they are heavier, and much, much stronger, so it’s really not a good idea to get on the wrong side of one.

With all the excitement over, we headed back down the hill, down some waterfalls, to our camp by the river, with all of us on a real high from getting to see an Orang Utan so close up. We had no idea the best was yet to come.

Jackie

Soon after we made camp, we were all sitting around drinking tea, when Alex pointed out that another semi-wild female, Jackie, was heading down the waterfall and in our direction. She soon made it over to us, and perched on a short little tree just a metre away from where we were sitting, with her adorable little baby (with a cool little Mohican) hanging off her side.

She sat there for a good half hour checking us out, before coming down from the tree and holding the hands of the two nearest people from our group, Helen & Sheri. I really hadn’t expected to get quite so close to an Orang-Utan, and for the next twenty minutes or so, she sat in the middle of us, at one point even giving Sheri a great big hug (which sounds great, but with her huge size and vicelike grip I think Sheri was quite glad to be released again).

Making her way down from the trees

Hugging Sheri

Getting close

It soon became clear that Jackie is quite a bit smarter than Mina – rather than using aggression to get her way, Jackie lulled us into a false sense of security with her affection, and once our guard was down she made a beeline towards the kitchen tent. The guides managed to stop her just in time, and I ended up holding her hand and walking her back across the rover and away from the camp while one of the guides tempted her with some bananas.

Getting ready to walk her away from the camp

She knew she was on to a good thing with us, because as we woke up the next morning she was back in the tree above camp, and soon came down again to get close to us. This time chaos ensued. A troupe of long-tailed macaques had decided to take advantage of our distraction by sneaking round the kitchen tent from the back to try and get at the food, and as soon as we realised what they were up to we stopped watching Jackie for a second and she was off – straight into another tent where she had clearly sniffed out our fruit supplies. In no time at all she’d nabbed all our bananas, oranges and lychees (as well as Helen’s breakfast) and was back up in a tree just out of our reach munching away at her prize.

A Macaque takes advantage of the chaos to steal some toast

We were all pretty speechless. I’d come along on the trek hoping to see the Orang Utans, but I had no idea I’d be able to get so close to one as to be able to hold her hand. They are such beautiful creatures, so human-looking in some of their actions and facial expressions, and clearly very intelligent too. Bukit Lawang had never been on my original itinerary, but I am so glad I made it now. It was my last day in Indonesia after two months, and what a way to go out, as it’s without a doubt one of the best memories of the entire trip to date for me.

You can see all of my photos of the trek here