I wander & wonder

Finally I got to a place with internet.

In the past 3 days, I spent most of my daytime sitting in a bus or a bemo or a car. From Pangandaran to Cipananas near Garut, to Bandung, and to Bogor, the sceneries along the way are beautiful, but the roads are terrible, narrow, with lots of holes and jammed around big towns and cities.

At Cipanas, I checked into a new resort and enjoyed the hot springs. The village is pretty and with lots of hotels, most of which are old and the rooms are not nice. People there are very friendly. When I arrived, it was raining, so I just checked into a hotel next to village square. But I found out that the bath tube was very dirty when I was about to enjoy the water. I looked at a few other rooms and decided to leave. The guy was not negative and even recommended another hotel to me. That's really nice.

As for Bandung, I didn't have much to say. I was really tired after spent more than 5 hours on the road and changed a bemo to get to central area. I couldn't find my way around and went to Bandung Train Station by taxi. I planned to travel from Bandung to Cipanas before Puncak by train. Unfortunately there is no train connection. The nice lady at Pangandaran gave me wrong information. After that, I walked around to look for a hotel and after over an hour, I found a room at a villa house in a quite lane close to the train station. Bandung is sort of chaotic and there are many one-way roads. It's certainly not an easy city to tour.

And today, there experience was even worse. I got to the bus terminal easily, but sitting in a wrong bus for some time even though I was led to that bus after asking the guards there. After I got into the right bus that will go via Puncak Pass, the driver didn't want to go as he wanted more passengers. He stopped here and there and drove really slowly, and the roads are bad. After over 3 hours, we got to Cipanas. I didn't like the place and decided to not to get off. When we got to Puncak, mists came up and then it started to rain. The downward lane became jammed and cars and buses move by inches and now and then, came to complete stop for quite a while. It was frustrating, I finally got off the bus at 2pm and went into a nice restaurant to have lunch and rest. After that, the trip to Bogor was slow and the city is not easy to navigate. I settled into a guest house around 5pm. What a day!

I still want to visit Puncak Pass and have lunch at Puncak to enjoy the views. Hopefully tomorrow the weather will be better.

Today is the 5th day of my Java trip. I'm relaxing at an interesting homestay about 30 meters away from the Pangandaran beach.

On 23 Jan., 2012 I went on a sunrise tour. There was no sunrise, with heavy clouds. But the view was great. I visited Borodudur after breakfast. With sun shining so bright, it was hot. I got to Yojya city in the afternoon and bought a minibus ticket to Pangandaran for the next day.

The most part of 24 Jan., 2012 was spent inside a minibus. The views along the way were nice. I saw a few vocalnos in the distance and passed by many rice fields. The minibus dropped me off close to Pangandaran beach around 4pm and within 5 minutes, I found a room at a homestay by the beach. I immediately went to take a shower and then it rained heavily. I was lucky. The rain stopped in half an hour and the sun reappeared. I went to the beach and saw half rainbow. The beach was very nice. The only problem was that it was not so clean. There were big waves. I had dinner at the homestay and the food was quite tasty.

Early this morning, I took a walk on the beach. There were few people. The beach was very clean. By comparison, it was better than Kuta beach. The homestay restaurant in on second floor, directly overlooking the sea. Breakfast was great, 3 pieces of toast, an egg, a bowl of fruits and a big cup of tea. In the last 3 days, the free breakfast was 2 piece of toast, with egg or jam and a small cup of tea. After breakfast, I just relaxed at the restaurant and thought about how to spend the next 5 days.

Tomorrow I'll be away from beach and go to hills, with hot springs, volcano crater, tea plantation, Puncak pass, botanic garden on my agenda. The trip sounds exciting. After good rest at Pangandaran, I'm ready to go.

I'm at Lotus 1 Guesthouse opposite Borobudur. Just finished dinner.

My Java trip started yesterday and so far, it went very well.

I landed at Yojya Airport at 12:20pm yesterday, on time. But it took me more than one hour to go through immigration, and they still used paper visa. The plane was full and all the people crammed into a small room to make payment & clear customs. It was quite a hassel.

I went directly to Prambanan by taxi. After a little bit search, I checked into a hotel and went to visit Prambanan at around 3pm. It was cloudy and there was cool breeze. The temple compound was very nice, with lots of greens. Later it rained a little bit, so I went inside the museum. The museum is wonderfully designed, a beautiful courtyeard with pavilions and houses. The rain lasted for 10 minutes.

I exited the temple compound at 5:30pm and went to look for a restaurant and the indoor theater. Unfortunately, it started raining again and it lasted more than an hour. I had dinner at an Indonesian Cafe and afterwards, went on the search for the theater. I was not far away from it, but a policeman gave me wrong directions and I went back to temple entrance. When another policeman gave me the correct directions, I was already tired and decided to call it a day and went back to hotel.

This morning, I got up early and went for a stroll. Surprisingly, I saw Mount Merapi just outside the hotel. I walked around for more than half an hour, it felt just one village after another as houses just lined the road and all the other land is rice or corn fields, with trees dotting here and there.

After breakfast at hotel, I went to Yojya city by bus. The Sultan's palace, Kraton, was around 1km away from where I got off. I went inside at 8:30am and was a little bit disappointed, Kraton is not as grand as the palaces I saw elsewhere.

Inside the palace compound, there are free music and dance performance at weekends. I was told that the performance started at 10am at the big pavilion close to entrance.  I was lucky and got a seat on the front row. It didn't start on time. We waited and waited. The performance finally got started after 10:30am. First they played music, then two man and two women started singing. Finally, the dance started. In total, 3 or 4 different dances were shown. The performance lasted for close to 2 hours. It sort of made it up for last night.

From Kraton to Borobudur, it was not easy. In the city area, the traffic was terrible. The road is narrow, with only 2 lanes. All the local people seemed to be outside to enjoy Sunday. When we got close to Borobudur, the road was jammed. When I finally got to the guesthouse close to 5pm, I was relieved.

It is raining again. Hopefully the rain can clear away the clouds and there will be sunrise tomorrow.

All the best wishes to my friends and their families in China! Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Early this morning I was woken up by rains. Fortunately by the time we were about to set out, it only drizzled a little bit.

The first beach we went to were next to a resort, so it is well maintained and is clean. We stopped for an hour and then went to visit another one. The weather was not so good, but there were many tourists on the island hopping trip. The second beach was dirty. There was not much to mention. The weather changed. It was cloudy with the sun coming out now and then.

The third island is the chicken island, but the water was high and we didn't stop. Our long-tail boat brought us to the other side of the island. It was a tiny island, with tiny beach, but it was white sand. We had lunch there. There were fish around. Later our boat brought us to a snorkeling spot, with lots of fish and some coral reefs.

After over half an hour, we went back to the tiny island. Now the water had receded and a nice white-sand beach appeared. People can walk directly to another small island nearby. The beach was nice, the water was clean. So far, this was the best part of our tour.

On our way back to Ao Nang, our boat stopped at Railey West to drop off two passengers. The view here was great. But this beach was isolated. Maybe I'll visit it some other time. We were back to Ao Nang before 4pm.

I was sun burned and after shower, I went to the massage salon by the sea. The massage was nice and I took some short snaps. Afterwards, I went to the same restaurant by the sea, Long-tail Boat Bar & Restaurant and had a nice dinner. I came here a few times, the waiters knew me and I got a fruit plate for free. What a nice day!

Tomorrow will be in-transit day. There is only one bus from Ao Nang/Krabi to Phuket. I will be picked up from hotel and dropped off at Phuket Airport, but I have to spend over five hours at airport. What a life!

Yesterday it took me over 5 hours to reach my hotel at Ao Nang.

Apparently the tourism is quite developed in Thailand. I got picked up by a minibus close to my hotel at Kata and changed to another minibus at Patong. It was raining heavily along the way. We changed to a third minibus at Krabi minibus station after waiting for more than half an hour. But we got dropped off at our hotels respectively.

I booked a nice hotel for the first night. It's a Thai style resort, a little out of shape and everything is worn off. The room is very nice, big, wooden floor and furniture, nice bathroom, a big bacolny with a swinging wooden sofa. The views from balcony is nice, but nearby a new hotel is under construction, hence, lots of noise.

Ao Nang beach is nice and clean. There are many shops, restaurants and tour agents. It's low season, so things are comparatively cheap. I had fresh seafood for a few meals at a chic restaurant by the sea.

Today the weather turned good and the sun finally came out. I spent most of my time by the sea. In the afternoon I visited a massage salon by the sea twice to avoid the strong sunshine. I had 1-hour head, shoulder and back massage before lunch and 20-minute foot scrub and 1-hour foot reflectory. It was nice even though sometimes it was a little bit painful.

I booked a 4-island tour for tomorrow. There are stars in the sky. Tomorrow should be a sunny day. Thank God!

I did two more dives today and finished my PADI Open Water Diver course.

The weather was bad. After our diving boat left the pier, I was busy with some paperwork related to the PADI Diver license and trying to finish my exam. Soon, it started to raining dogs and cats and the boat rocked a lot. My instructor told me to lay down, but I still felt a little bit sick on my stomach.

It was a more than an hour drive and we arrived at Ko Raya around 10:40am. The water here was very nice, clear and with lots of fish and coral reefs. The instructor was not holding my hand any more. I still had big problems with kicking fins. I concentrated on getting my body straight and not to getting panic. As a result, I didn't have much time to enjoy the scenes.

We started lunch after 11:30am and after lunch, the rain stopped, the sea calmed down, and a few of us were standing around the jumping platform and feeded fish with bread. Lots of colorful fish, really nice.

For my fourth dive, I was doing even worse as I hardly had strength to kick fins and failed to keep my body floating horizontally in the water. The underwater world is fanscinating, with lots of fish, shell fish, corals, etc. But I was stressed and couldn't hardly enjoy all the funs.

After we finished the dive, it started to rain again. The sea was really rough. But I stayed outside for most of the journey back. It's a rare chance to get so close to all the waves.

I got back to hotel close to 4pm and went out to Kata Beach. On the way, I checked on boat/bus tickets to Ao Nang. The beach was dirtier than yesterday and there were less people. After walking on the beach for twenty minutes, I had an early dinner at a restaurant with good views over the Kata beach. Pizza at this restaurant is very tasty, with lots of cheese and extremely thin bread.

Before it was dark, I was back to hotel and used their computer to check for hotels at Ao Nang. For this trip, I used Agoda website mostly to book rooms. It will be no fun to look around for a room in the rain.

One nice thing about hotels in Phuket is that guests can use their internet for free. 

According to weather forecast on the internet, it will be raining for the next few days. It's truely a wet holiday.

Today is my third day in Phuket.

Bad weather, raining everyday. When it stopped raining late in the afternoon in the last two days, I was at Karon Beach. Big waves. Nice yellow beach, but it was not so clean.

Yesterday I started my PADI Open Water Diving course. It was low season and some diving centers gave discount. Luckily, I was the only student and had a Thai lady instructor all to myself.

I got a book on Thursday night, but didn't get much time to read. Yesterday morning, I was shown a  one-hour video. Then I was asked to take an exam. Sadly I didn't read much. The instructor didn't ask me to finish all the questions. After the exam, we went to a swimming pool nearby & practiced for about an hour. It was not easy to kick legs with fins on. In fact, it was quite difficult for me. We stopped at around 1pm as it was raining hard.

Today it was raining and windy. So we went to a small island nearby and did two dives. For the first dive, I was asked to jump into the sea from the diving boat. For a few seconds, I was frightened and didn't move. Then someone behind me gave me a push, and bang, I was in the sea. The sea water was bitterly salty.

Under the water, I had problems keeping my body straight and moving the fins. Now and then, my instructor just dragged me along. We were under water for half an hour, then we got up to the boat and had an early lunch around 10:30am. We started our second dive at 11:30am and I was performing better.

Given the weather, visibility was not so good. But it was still lots of fun. We saw lots of fish, even though they didn't look so colorful as in postcards. Corals were mostly gray.

We finished early and I was back to hotel before 2pm. I'm looking forward to more funs tomorrow. Hopefully we'll have better weather!

马属婆罗州之行，重头戏就是爬号称东南亚最高的Kinobalu山，山上的床位很抢手，得提前半年预定。

确定的爬山日期不太理想，但也没办法，出行前，只安排好最后几天的住宿，爬山前的行程，并未详细计划。

事实证明，长期不运动就心血来潮去爬山，完全是自找苦吃。下山时精疲力尽，好几天走路不利索。

下山后，去泡了温泉、逛了海岛，又到古晋(Kuching)歇了两天，才缓过劲来。古晋附近的Santubong有个很棒的乡村旅馆，Village House，让人流连忘返。

大致算了一下花销，一千多新币，吃住条件一般。与印度、印尼、泰国相比，在马来西亚旅行的费用偏高。

总地说来，这是一次愉快的旅行。

D1: Singapore - Kota Kinobalu

D2: Kota Kinobalu - Labuan

D3: Labuan

D4: Labuan - Kota Kinobalu

D5: Kota Kinobalu - Kinobalu Park HQ

D6: Kinobalu Park HQ - Laban Rata

D7: Laban Rata - Peak - Laban Rata - Kinobalu Park HQ - Poring

D8: Poring - Kota Kinobalu

D9: Kota Kinobalu - Kuching

D10: Kuching

D11: Kuching - Santubong

D12: Santubong - Kuching - Singapore

时间过得好快，转眼就五月了。

二月中从印度回来后，也懒得整理照片，然后，三月份嗖地一下就过完了。四月初去上海出了趟差，顺便回家呆了三天。四月下旬去大马的婆罗州休假，总共呆了12天，上山下海逛海岛，过得非常愉快，特别是爬东南亚最高山（Kinobalu神山）的经历，十分难忘。

上周六是新加坡大选日，算公共假期，年假就多了一天，可惜必须得在七月底前用掉。下周二又是个公共假期，倒是可以考虑休个小假，可惜，纠结了半天，不知去哪儿。

不知何故，最近几个月都提不起精神干正事，时光却在飞快地流逝。

春节期间，在印度呆了半个月，行程如下：

D1: New Delhi - Agra (highlight: National Museum)

D2: Agra (highlight: Taj Mahal)

D3: Agra - Fatehpur Sikri

D4: Fatehpur Sikri - Jaipur (highlight: City Palace Museum)

D5: Jaipur - Pushkar (highlight: Amer Fort)

D6: Pushkar - Jodpur

D7: Jodpur - Jaisalmer (highlight: Meherangarh Fort)

D8: Jaisalmer (highlight: Fort Palace Museum, camel safari)

D9: Jaisalmer

D10: Jaisalmer - Jodpur - Ranakpur (highlight: Jain Temple)

D11: Ranakpur - Udaipur

D12: Udaipur

D13: Udaipur - New Delhi (highlight: City Palace Museum)

D14: New Delhi

D15: New Delhi

短短十来天，看了不少古堡，泰姬陵之外，印象最深刻的是Jodpur和Jaisalmer这两处的城堡，非常壮观。在印度吃得也不错，各种咖喱菜式，比在新加坡、马来西亚吃到的，美味了许多。