Twin Towers

I just enjoyed one of life's greatest luxuries, catching a movie spontaneously. And, on top of that, catching a great chick flick, "Sex in the City 2". I am sure my husband will be relieved to learn that he will not now need to see it with me. I really enjoyed it, in all it's cheeziness and decadence. And sitting there by myself in a Kuala Lumpur theatre, I was surrounded by women mostly wearing head coverings. I couldn't help, but thinking that here we all were from such very different lives laughing and tearing up together over a very American phenomenon.

I have spent the day surrounded by Americana and the western world. I spent the day inside of the KLCC or the Petronas Towers or, as my taxi driver said, the Twin Towers. That place, for me, is something etched inextricably into Americans' memories, a place we will never see the likes of again. For practical purposes, though, that is what this place is and, in some aspects, represents the same ideals. And, because of the association I make to the fallen NYC World Trade Center, I can't help, but feel a bit shaken up here, a bit on edge. I have wondered more than a few times today if it is safe to be in such an icon of the western world and a gathering place of so many people. I tell myself the thought is nonsense and it quickly floats away, but it has come back a few times.

I am sitting inside the towers now, well, the shopping center part of them at the base anyways, enjoying a chicken pesto sandwich and a latte before I head to the airport to go back to Bali tonight. Today feels like a vacation within a vacation. I went to The Gap and bought another of their sundresses I like so much. I spent the rest of my time just meandering through the mall's many levels soaking in the labels, designer and name brand, and all the baubles, those ridiculously expensive and those relatively not so, but still out of so many's reach. It has been a very nice day, but I will be happy to be back in Ubud and back at yoga class tomorrow.

The taxi driver dropped me off this morning at one of the entrances to the Towers, formally called the Kuala Lumpur Convention Center (KLCC), at the front doors to a branch of the bank I used to work for. Seeing the blue and white sign gave me an almost physical jolt. It almost felt like deja vu, another lifetime coming back to haunt me, simultaneously so long ago, but also so fresh in my mind and emotions. I left that job for many reasons. Today's reaction made me realize that I am still coming to terms with both the incredibly good and bad experiences I had while working there. The memories of which still seem to snap me into a confusion of emotions as if I am suddenly forced against my will onto a roller coaster where the last five years are played before me. I remind myself, though, that this means progress. That jolt I felt means I have been able to gain some distance, both physically and mentally.

Enjoy your weekends, everybody!

Cutting corners in Kuala Lumpur

I am in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on a visa run to renew my Indonesian visa. Aaah! You just have to accept the inefficiencies. I am trying to look on the bright side. I stocked up on some hard to find books at a huge Borders bookstore here and got some much needed toiletries (like contact lens cleaning fluid). I am also taking in the free wifi everywhere that KL has to offer.

I am sitting in Chinatown right now at an OldTown White Coffee (like a Starbucks). I booked the cheapest hotel I could find and lucked out in that it is in a local neighborhood away from the typical tourist destinations. I am sitting here amongst circles of local men chewing over the day's headaches and gossiping while watching a World Cup match on a big screen t.v. My hotel just covers all the bases...just. Unbeknownst to me it seems to cater to a, how do I put this, vivacious, transient crowd of couples. The walls are so thin that I could hear every word and kiss and...of the Asian couple in the room neighboring mine. They weren't speaking English, but it was clear what was going on. I can only imagine why they were doing what they were doing at 4.30 on a Thursday afternoon, but I try to tell myself they were just lusty tourists and not a local guy and his escort.

I turned on my television to the National Geographic channel just loud enough so I could hear the words of the program and so could my neighbors, thus, making it clear that I could hear them if they could hear my television. I hoped a documentary on shark fin poaching would squelch, umm, quiet them down. No luck. They just went on louder, now with mocking, vulgar language in English. It was like listening to a bad X rated Asian movie that's been dubbed over in English (not that I know from experience, but I can imagine). I changed rooms.

On the ride up from exchanging my room keys at the front desk, I noticed the women at the front desk's narrowed eyes and terse whispering and, following their gaze, stepped onto the elevator where I joined another questionable couple of obviously different ages (the woman a decade younger). Thankfully, the couple got off at the first floor and I continued to the second.

Going Green

Here are some more pictures of Puri Padi hotel...

From Wednesday, June 16

Boredom has been creeping in. Well, that and a growing anxiousness about my southward bound bank balance. A friend, a longtime traveller himself, reminded me to not worry so much about money because, from his experience, it can always be earned back, but that it won't always be possible to take a trip like the one I am on. Thanks for that!

Nevertheless, I had originally planned to take a week of cooking classes here, but when I looked into a few and realized they start at $25 per class, I quickly changed my mind. Besides, The Netherlands probably has the biggest per capita consumption of Indonesian food outside of Indonesia. It has to do with The Netherlands' many centuries of interest in (for trade purposes) and influence over these islands. The rather bland Dutch alternatives probably have something to do with it too. I ate Nasi Goreng and Chicken sate with peanut sauce many times before ever trying Stamppot (a hearty dish of potatoes mashed with spinach or a similar green and topped with a sausage or another kind of meat and sometimes also sauerkraut). I will just buy an Indonesian cooking book when I return home and try recipes from the comfort of my own kitchen.

I got to thinking, though, about things I have always wanted to do, but have never made time for. First was yoga and a close second was reading. For as long as I can remember, I have had this fantasy of shutting myself away somewhere quasi remote and reading a pile of books that have for various reasons interest me. I imagined I would be on a porch of some wooden cabin in a semi-remote forest overlooking a lake. A Balinese hotel with a pool, ponds of koi fish, frangipani trees, hostas, and birds of paradise is a close second.

So yesterday I went to a new and used bookstore and bought a few books. The first I read was a non-fiction called the "Longevity Diet". I will save you the vagaries of the book except to say that it emphasizes eating a relatively low calorie diet of lots of fruits and vegetables. It isn't anything revolutionary which is actually reassuring to me. It's health claims were convincing enough for me to give up my new potato chip and large Bintag beer per day habit and to commit myself to adding fruit to my breakfast and vegetables to my dinners and aiming to have a vegetable and fruit centered lunch.

To that end, I decided to go to one of the healers mentioned in "Eat, Pray, Love". If you have read the book, it is Wayan. If you haven't, it is the friend Gilbert makes when she goes in search of an herbal remedy for a bad cut she gets from a bicycling accident. Gilbert ends up going in everyday to Wayan's shop for a vitamin lunch. I imagined Wayan now having a menu of food options. I was wrong. The menu IS the vitamin lunch and it costs just over $6. That is expensive by Ubud standards and I wasn't really all that interested in having turmeric to clean my kidneys, for instance.

I promised I would come back when I was ready for a big lunch and hurried across the street and up the stairs to Bali Buddha, what Lonely Planet calls an Ubud mainstay with a great menu. I ordered a smoothie called Green Boost or something or other. To my surprise, I was completely shocked when a thick liquid green concoction was put in front of me. What else should I expect? I have no idea what made it green. It had apples and maybe banana along with ginseng, spirulina, and there must have been ginger because it had that trademark heat in its aftertaste that just sticks in your throat. Sticking to my vow and not all that hungry, I also got hummus and carrot sticks. I will definitely be going back to Bali Buddha regularly, but to try it's banana chai smoothie, not it's green concoctions.

I was hoping the Green Booster would somehow give me an energy boost and cure my almost constant thirst. It did give me a boost, but actually just made me want to drink more water to kill the ginger burn in my throat. Not even the deepest massage will relieve all of the aches and pains I am feeling from my first week of yoga, though. Sitting in a chair and doing little else besides reading is just what the doctor ordered, I think.

This morning's yoga class was Vinyasa Flow. It was like Bikram yoga without the +100F heat and without any other beginner yogis. At least that is what it seemed to me. Holy yogi! The instructor, unlike in my few classes at home, did all of the poses with us and showed us all of the variations to make the pose more difficult. He would just fluidly fling himself from a plank (push up) forward and up into an elbow stand (propping one's knees on one's bent elbows with only one's hands supporting the body) and then up into a hand stand. I didn't really need to know the variations, but I was one of the few. The class included hand stands, head stands, pigeons, camels, and a whole zoo of other tantric positions.

I was just proud of myself for fighting the overwhelming urge I felt about thirty minutes into the hour and a half class to duck my head and silently run out of the class. The teacher was very nice and helpful and the rest of my classmates were very zen about everything, but that kind of made it worse. I was just focused on remembering to breathe. While on my hands and knees, I remember staring down at my already quivering arms wondering how the hell they were going to hold up my entire body in a hand stand. I think I will go to the beginner's yoga class tomorrow morning...for some easy stretching and to build my confidence again a little.

"Eat, Pray, Love"

From 10 June...

I thought it appropriate to spend my first night in Ubud listening to “Eat, Pray, Love” read by the author Elizabeth Gilbert. Oh, thank you, thank you for this book. It brought me here. It has not brought me to Ubud for the same reasons Gilbert came, but the mention of the town got me on the path to coming here. And, once on the path, I realized that there is yoga here and a buzz that is a little less party than Kuta and a little more zen than the rest of Bali.

So far, despite my first day’s experience here, I really like it. I am really looking forward to going to the Monkey Sanctuary to see the cheeky, wild monkeys. I am slightly terrified about getting back into yoga. I will start tomorrow. I will start tomorrow. I am not going to kid myself about getting across town to the 7am beginner’s yoga which is probably the most appropriate class for me, but I hope to get there for, let’s see, what was the name of it, they have so many. Yes, either Hatha yoga at 8.30 or 10.30 Vinyasa flow. (I ended up at an afternoon beginners' yoga class. I spent the morning moving to a new hotel, but more on that later.)

I can’t wait to be a regular there. The stepping in the door for the first class terrifies me. I will be fine once I get there, I am sure. It is just the first step. To this end, I think I need to stay in a hotel close to yoga. No more excuses, sweetheart. That and the hotel I had arranged for myself for these twenty days has really pissed me off by forgetting my reservation and not having space for me upon my arrival. I have no room for pissed off in Ubud. Granted, the hotel I found is about double the price of my original choice, but $15 extra per day seems a small reason.

I so want to fall in love with Ubud that I have the idea in the back of my head to come back here again after my husband and I part ways at the end of July. Everyone looks at me skeptically when I tell them I plan to stay here for twenty days, though.

From 11 June...

Last night was a restless night. The paper thin walls and windows of the guesthouse meant I heard every door shut, every word of the conversations by family that runs the guesthouse, every rain drop dropping into the plastic bucket outside my room, every motorbike drive by on the busy street, every crow of the roosters, and every hammer of the workers on the neighbor's roof. The dirty bed sheet masquerading as a curtain blocked little of the light coming from the street lamp hung by my window or the sun that rose at about 6am. The ceiling fan above did little more than cut through the stale heat in the air.

The breakfast, served on my private balcony, was delicious (see picture). It was a huge banana pancake drizzled with chocolate sauce, fresh fruit, and a cup of coffee. But, once I was drenched in sweat ten minutes after I had taken a shower, I knew I needed a room with air conditioning. I just can't explain the relief it is to have a respite from the heat in the evening or even in midday when the sun is at it's hottest.

I returned to one of the several hotels I visited yesterday, this one the cheapest option close to my yoga classes. I met with the manager in the end and, using a tip from some British travellers I met in Padangbai, managed to get the price negotiated down from about $30 to $25. It may not sound like much, but when multiplied across 19 days, it adds up. The tip was to reassure the person that you would keep the price secret from other guests. I also forced myself to just sit their quietly with as little of an expression as I could muster. In the past it was always my tendency to either lose my patience with the bargaining process and leave or to soften my face and essentially acquiesce with my body language to the other party's selling price. I still find myself losing my patience oftentimes with smaller purchases until, in a huff, I finally give into the price from the fifth store I have visited to buy a bottle of beer or t-shirt or whatever it is I am after.

The hotel was beautiful when it opened probably ten years ago. I am sure of it. But, like I have seen in so many buildings in SE Asia, Malaysia, and Indonesia, little maintenance and the lack of routine, thorough cleaning has quickly faded the building and its amenities. Eight rooms at the back of the property stand derelict. From them, I get the idea of just how difficult it is to fight off the affects of humidity on even the finest of materials like marble.

But for now, I am overjoyed to move into my cool, spacious air conditioned room. I unpack and easily get settled before changing my clothes and heading out for my first yoga class five minutes' walk away.

I will upload more pictures of the hotel later, but here are a few of the four room bungalows nestled into the lush property and a view of my carved wooden doors that lead out onto my huge balcony. That's not cement you see, either. It is all marble!

The plane, the plane!

One last thing about Layang Layang...the resort arranges the only transport to and from the islands. My husband was looking forward to taking the Russian aircraft carrier that the travel agent had mentioned to us. As an as yet recovering phobic of turbulence, I was just wishing for a plane that could reach the highest altitude and get us their the fastest. We were both surprised.

It is called a twin otter, but to me it was the flying canoe. It is THE smallest plane I have ever been on. As a person that flew weekly to and from London on a Fokker 50, that is saying something. I call it the flying canoe because when one of the other passengers shifted seats to take a picture on the opposite side of the cabin, I expected the shift in weight to cause the wing to drop and us to veer in the direction of the passenger's movement much like a person standing or shifting their weight will cause a canoe to dip abruptly. You can see by one of these pictures, people were moving about the tiny plane excitedly snapping pictures of the tiny cockpit and views of the reefs in the waters below. The plane didn't dip or veer, but I still found myself, in a cold sweat, tensing up with each passenger's movements.

I think the plane had ten seats. A flight attendant was not necessary. There was no galley for his/her cart nor tray table for passengers nor seat. We sat in the front row and so could see the cockpit in its cramped entirety. I tried to comfort myself by watching the pilot and co-pilot. They flipped switches, turned knobs, pulled and pushed on levers and wrote in a log in a practiced, unrushed manner so I reassured myself that things were going as planned.

It is funny to look back on the pictures now because the people on the flight with us ended up being the people we dove with every day. That is how the hotel arranges it. We are assigned a flight and a boat and we pretty much spend our days together, for better or worse. We were really lucky!

Bali Hai

I arrived in Ubud, Bali today. From reading "Lonely Planet" and "Eat, Pray, Love", I have pretty high expectations for Ubud. I should know better by now....

I have been e-mailing back and forth with the Teba House. They didn't get back to me about arranging a pick-up from Kuta, but I decided to just relax about it and figure out my own taxi. I should preface this by letting readers know that I am planning to stay in Ubud for twenty days and, if I like it, may come back in mid-July for another few weeks. So I had confirmed a twenty day reservation with Teba House...only to get there and for them to have no recollection of my reservation. Apparently, the person doing the e-mails does not talk to the person doing the reservations. Of course, the person that I e-mailed wasn't anywhere to be found.

Beginning tomorrow, they will have a standard room available for me so I am staying next door in a neighbour's guesthouse. The problem with the standard is that it only has a fan and I am afraid I am just too much of a princess to go without A/C for sleeping. We'll see. I will give it a try tonight and tomorrow. I spent the rest of the day scoping out other hotels. I found one for $30 per night next to the place I will start yoga, but I am hesitating. It is nearly double the price I had budgeted myself.

Other than that, my first impression is to really like Ubud. The yoga place, Yoga Barn, looks great - intimidating, but great. It runs classes basically all day and on so many different kinds of yoga, it is impossible to get bored. That is what I am here for...to get back to yoga. I have decided that is my main goal for my time in Bali - to get back in-touch with my body. It sounds air fairy, I know, but it is pretty easy to put one's body on the proverbial shelf while travelling. Trying to go for the cheaper options - whether accommodations, food, or transportation - usually isn't that friendly on the back or rest of the body. I am not complaining, don't get me wrong.

Yoga will have to wait until tomorrow, though. I knocked the edge off my disappointment and off my thirst after walking for a few hours with a large bottle of Bali Hai beer. Here is a picture of my plate of Mie Goreng and beer. It was delicious! I am quite the cheap date these days with regards to drinking so one large bottle of beer and I am set for the night pretty much. That means no yoga. Could you imagine drunk yoga?

Layang Layang

I know it has been awhile, but better late than never....

In mid-May, my husband and I spent five nights on the island of Layang Layang off the northwest coast of Malaysian Borneo. As you can see, there were beautiful sunsets. There were also some really nice diving. We were just a little late and so the schools of hammerhead sharks were gravitating lower and thus out of our reach to see well. When the visibility was good, we could see some off in the distance probably twenty meters (60 feet) below us. That was fine with me, to be honest. I have gotten comfortable with seeing most sharks in the water especially those that are smaller than a human, but hammerheads have such a mixed reputation that I am happy to keep my distance. Instead, I really enjoyed the manta ray and turtles.

I would recommend any divers to take a trip to Layang Layang, but to not leave it as late as mid-May. I hear Mid-April is perfect timing. I really only recommend Layang Layang, though, if you can stay on a liveaboard. We stayed at the only accommodations on the island and they just weren't worth what we paid for them. I have been told that it is typically Malaysian to build a resort or any building and to do little to no maintenance. From the beginning, though, they used cheap materials inside the hotel - from the veneer walls to the AstroTurf carpeting - it felt like living on a very cheap boat. The walls were so thin that we could hear the conversations of people in the hallway and adjoining rooms. One friend we made there joked that she could hear all of the phones ring on her floor when the daily wake up call for divers was sent out by the front desk.

The staff also only sporadically cleaned the common areas. I could tell that management was, for instance, requiring staff to keep the tile floor in the dining room of the three times daily buffet clean, but it was obvious by the dark ring around the tile in the swimming pool just above the water line and the layer of tanning oil on the water's surface that management thought the pool would pretty much take care of itself and that the deck furniture would naturally stay clean by leaving it out in the rain.

As an icing on the cake, so to speak, the hotel decided the night before our departure to change the three flights they arrange for transportation back to Borneo to one large flight. Fortunately, we took our travel agent's advice and booked our connecting flight the next morning, but most people weren't so lucky. Forunately for us the re-scheduled flight was also a few hours late. Otherwise, from a diving safety point of view, we would have been cutting it really close to the minimum nitrogen detox waiting period required before flying.

The issues were mostly overshadowed by the nice diving and the other divers we met. For the most part, everyone we met was an experienced diver so it made for really relaxing dives. And, above the water, we were fortunate to meet other couples our age to hang out with. The lackluster buffet style meals would have been unbearable otherwise.

One lesson I have taken away from diving in SE Asia is to bring my own equipment. It is a major pain for someone travelling for an extended period of time, but it is really worth it. The equipment maintenance in Malaysia and Indonesia at least is ridiculous and verges on dangerous. I will be heading to Fiji in a few months too, and from what I read from reviews online, it isn't much better there either. So yesterday, I bit the bullet and bought a new suitcase, one more suitable for my dive equipment. My original backpack was huge at 65 liters, but this Quiksilver surfing bag on wheels is enormous at 96 liters. Fortunately, my husband will be able to bring my bcd and regulator with him when he joins me in Indonesia in July so I will then have all of my own gear (sans my fins).

Popping up in Gili

Just wanted to let everyone know I am in the Gili Islands now off Lombok, Indonesia. My apologies for going MIA. I will be heading to Kuta, Bali tomorrow and back to the land of strong wifi connections.

So...stay tuned for blogs about orangutans, manta rays, and my 100th dive!