Bali, the last stretch....

Wow, we have been home for at least a month now, but I haven’t updated our blog with the final weeks in Bali. It might be at bit late for you, but I would like to have our blog complete :-)

Bali was in one word FANTASTIC!

We met wonderful friendly people, stayed at awsome places, saw beautfiful scenery and did amazing things.

We started our stay (after one night in Kuta) with a family home stay in Tabanan. Wayan and his lovely wife Nyoman welcomed us in their home and took good care of us. They showed us the Balinese family life, the rice fields surrounding their village, a local market (where we ate a kind of pancake covered in milk, chocolate, banana and peanut butter!), introduced us to Balinese offerings and dressed us up in traditional Balinese dresses!

We had a wonderful sightseeing day visiting various parts of Bali. The Jatiluwih rice fields, the botanical gardens and Pura Ulun Danu Bratan temple.

Of course the day ended with the sunset in Tanah Lot, but due to the weather it wasn’t as spectacular as we hoped. 

After four wonderful days we had to say goodbye and we continued our trip to Ubud, the cultural capital of Bali.

Here we stayed at Villa Lumbung, just outside Ubud, where the host made us feel very welcome. We enjoyed the shopping at Ubud and went to experience Balinese dance and music at night. The girls loved it (and so did we)!

Bali Treetop Adventure took us high up the trees where we could wander around and zipline high above the ground.

Our next destination was Nusa Lembongan, a small island, about 45 minutes by fast boat away. Luckily the ride wasn’t too bumpy this time....

Because it would be my 40th birthday at the island we stayed at in a wonderful villa with a hanging chair, beautiful view over the ocean, massages and cocktails at night.

It felt like the life of a princess.....waking up with the sound of waves, a delicious breakfast, nothing better to do than read, lying on the comfy beds, having a massage, getting a pedicure or manicure, drinking fresh and cocktails.....

 Cleo had a mineral water named after her!! :-)

But we couldn’t leave Bali without a little bit of activity so we went on a snorkelling trip. Isen and Cleo went in the water for about 15 minutes and the rest of the trip they watched us snorkelling while sitting in the boat, but Lily, York and I splashed around for quite some time and marvelled at the underwater world.

After this day we had to leave Nusa Lembongan and head back to Bali and fly to Kuala Lumpur where we had one more day to do some serious shopping and some fish therapy!! Oww, that tickles!

With our two big backpacks, a Balinese bag full of souvenirs and clothing from KL we arrived safe and sound in the Netherlands on July 4th. Family and friends welcomed us at the airport and at home with a big banner!!

After 5 weeks we can truly say that we have ‘arrived’  back home. The girls spent two weeks at school before school holidays started again.....

I have started work as a locum again.

We love being back in the Netherlands and seeing friends and family agian. 

But thinking about the past 18 months we feel very blessed to have been able to travel the world, meeting wonderful people, seeing beautiful places, working in a different environment, biking along Lake Taupo with its magnificient background of stunning mountains, maing new friends, seeing our girls learning a new language and settling in in a new school, class and kindy and do some more travelling.

We miss Taupo, New Zealand and the wonderful people we have met. 

We haven’t decided yet where to settle in the long run, but we do know that wherever it will be we will have wonderful people beside us.

Top Malaysia!

With more than a week delay, I am posting this blog (wifi wasn't working properly, I think...). We are now in Bali, but will write about that next time!

Luckily our experience in Kuala Lumpur got better and we had a lovely second day in KL. After dark we went on a boat ride and saw an amazing 'show' of fireflies who were all around us in the trees lining the river. It was beautiful (but the pictures are not so great...) and definitely a highlight of our stay in KL.

 The girls also loved feeding the silver leaf monkeys on our way to the fireflies.

This beautiful temple was also part of the tour.

By bus we took the winding road to the Cameron Highlands, where the temperatures are a lot lower, although a sweater is still not necessary.

Unfortunately the long walks we wanted to do here failed as the tracks were either not safe or difficult to find. We did walk to a waterfall but seeing all that rubbish in the water and knowing how beautiful it could be if people would just put their rubbish in a trash can was a bit disheartening.

As the public transport (besides private taxis) in CH isn't great (well non-existent) we took a tour to visit the sights. With a ramshackle 4WD we went up the hills to visit mountain Gunung Brinchang and Mossey Forest where we did a short jungle trek. We would love to do more, but the cooler weather was still 24 degrees and the girls really thought this was enough.....

As CH is tea plantation and factory country we couldn't skip a visit to one of these. It was interesting to see where the lovely teas come from! 

A swim near a waterfall was the perfect end of the day.

We were wowed by the island Penang and its main city and Unesco World Heritage Site George Town. What an amazing and beautiful city. Although they do lack pedestrian crossings (why? Do they just expect you to cross anywhere and hope for the best? They do have sidewalks!), it was a pleasure to wander around town. So many tasty restaurants, nice little shops, amazing street art and old, historic buildings. 

We spent hours in the old mansions that are open to the public and even more time in the Kek Lok Si Temple (the largest Buddhist temple in Malaysia, and that is not a lie!). With a cable car you can visit the highest level, which is a the foot (literally) of a 36.5m-high bronze statue of the goddess of mercy.

As our first two weeks in Malaysia coincided with school holidays we were happy that they were over, but apparently after the school holidays is the time for maintenance, as the Penang Hills were closed when we wanted to pay them a visit.

That gave us time to see the Clan Jetties, which used to be one of the worlds most thriving ports. It became the place for the ever-growing Chinese community to live and is nowadays a low-income area with people living in floating and stilt houses.

Penang is a wonderful island and luckily we had the opportunity to visit its national park and had a walk in its jungle forest. It involved some climbing, but we all loved it!

After a short flight we arrived on the island of Langkawi two days ago. This tropical place is our last stop in Malaysia before we head to Bali for the final stretch of our trip.

Langkawi has white sand beaches, turquoise water and lots of tourists! 

Yesterday (well, now it is a little bit longer ago...) we rented a car and drove around the island. Of course we took the cable cab to see Panorama Langkawi from the stunning mountaintop of Gunung Machinchang. Amazing views, also from the SkyBridge, a simple-pilon suspension bridge.

Now the girls are asleep after a day of island hopping. A speedboat took us to two other islands today where we could kayak, swim and just hang around. No pictures unfortunately, so you just have to take my word for it that the scenery was stunning!

Asian delight!

Singapore surprised us with more old heritage buildings than we expected.
We have had three wonderful days there, filled with meals at so called hawker centres (food courts with lots of stalls where you can eat everything from veggie 'n rice to pork belly soup), walks through Chinatown, a visit to the Asian Civilisations Museum and the very large and interesting Science Centre.



At night we went to see two light shows in town. One was at the Supertrees at the Gardens by the Bay. Man-made trees extremely high, that explode in a magnificent light and sound show at night. To get to this show we had to cross a luxurious mall where you could even go on a Venice-like boat trip in an artificial canal inside the mall. On top of the mall/apartment building of 50+stories was an outdoor garden in the shape of a (space?)ship.....
Afterwards we had to hurry to the other side of the building to see the spectacular light show in the harbour of Singapore.



The most fun thing we did was a cool down in Snow City! Again, an artificial indoor snowpark, with ice and snow sculptures, where we went tubing down the slopes! As the temperature was 33 degrees outside and about minus 8 inside we had to adjust a bit (it was weird wearing gloves, waterproof pants and snow boots in Singapore).
I think the highlight of the trip for the kids was the Night Safari. In a separate part of the wonderful Singapore Zoo, you can see the animals after dark while walking around or on a tram ride (when there are no barriers, so it is important to keep hands and feet inside).
Singapore is crowded, more than 5 million people on an island of 20x50 km. So many people, but well organised.
We stayed in a lovely hostel, but with 5 people in two bunkbeds on a total of 8 m2, it felt a bit cramped at times.

From Singapore we took a bus across the border to Malaysia. Although not as exceptionally clean as Singapore (where you are not allowed to eat in the public transport, so no dustbins there....but what to do with small pieces of paper or the wrapper of a plaster, that our girls need a lot as they keep scratching the mosquito bites they got in Australia until it bleeds....), but a beautiful country indeed.
Lots of old heritage buildings here in Melaka, Portugese, Dutch and British.






A melting pot of Malay, Chinese and other cultures which as many different cuisines to enjoy.
We walked the cultural sites, ate at a range of different restaurants (yes, also the smelly (and often forbidden on planes, buses and other public transport) but tasteful durian fruit. As true travellers/tourists we had to take a trip on a trishaw. A colourfully decorated bicycle with an extra seat next to it. The girls chose Frozen and Hello Kitty as the themes.....





A Melaka River Cruise was the end of a long and exhausting day.

Of course we didn't miss the famous Jonker Night Market in Chinatown. The girls loved the baked potatoes on a stick!






Now we are in Kuala Lumpur and as happy we were yesterday with the smooth bus-ride here, so disappointed are we today about how the temple we couldn't find (and nobody seem to know where it was or could point us in the right direction) and the fact that they seem to make it very difficult to escape from the malls and find a walkway to the park. We did find it after all, but instead of a nice walkway, we had to walk along highways without proper signs where to go....
So far, KL hasn't stolen our hearts yet, but maybe tomorrow that will change.

Northern Territory.... What a beauty!

What National Park to choose on the Top End of the Northern Territory? Kakadu, Litchfield or Nitmiluk? We couldn't choose so we did them all!

We drove from the Red Centre of Central Australia to the more tropical Top End and it got indeed warmer (finally warm evenings so we could eat outside!), unfortunately they have the mosquitoes to go with it and the rivers got some water in them and aren't as dry as the ones we passed on the Red Centre.

First we went to Nitmiluk National Park (close to Katherine) and here we enjoyed a dawn cruise in the Katherine Gorge. There are actually 13 gorges (narrow passageways for a river through rocky area), but we only saw the first two. The Top End has two seasons the Dry (approx. April/May till Oct, from Oct till April is called the Wet). In the Wet sites are often closed as roads can be flooded, as recent as 6 weeks ago the gorges we went through were under a couple of meters extra of water!
A couple of years ago the streets in the town of Katherine where three meter under water and when they where clearing the local supermarket they had to fight off a three-meter long crocodile who apparently found a new home there....
In the dry you can explore the gorges by canoe as well but as the Rangers haven't given the 'clear' yet (meaning that all the saltwater crocodiles (=dangerous to humans) that went into the gorges during the wet have been caught and releases elsewhere and only freshwater crocodiles (=if not provoked not a danger to humans) are left).
We saw a crocodile during our tour and marvelled at the stunning scenery.






We had clear blue skies and finally the girls had a change to swim! Well, they did that near Uluru as well but the water was way to cold for York and me to join them. Now a dip in the pool was nice and refreshing!






Australia is inhabited by lots of native animals but also by lots of different animals that were introduced here by the settlers to liven things up, for sport or for business. The camels we rode in Alice Springs were brought to Australia between 1870-1900 to be used to build the railway between Adelaide and Alice Springs. When the work was done the animals were set free and now about 100,000 camels the deserts in Central and Western Australia (apparently the only place in the world where one-humped dromedaries exist in the wild).
In Nitmiluk National Park there are buffaloes grazing the plains and wild horses.

From Nitmiluk we continued to Kakadu National Park.





This beautiful park is owned by the local Aboriginal people who have lived here for at least 25,000 years.
The park is 20,000 sq km, which almost half the size of the Netherlands. You can imagine that there are several different areas (eg woodland, wetland), with lots of animals and rock art.
We took a Yellow River wildlife cruise and saw lots of birds and about ten 'salties' (saltwater crocodiles).
Despite the heat (approx 34 degrees) we resisted the urge to take a swim this time.....

In the gorgeous Litchfield National Park there are several waterfalls and plunge pools where it is safe to swim, which we did of course. In the water of the famous Wangi Falls there are fresh water crocodiles, but as there are not a danger to humans (they would try to avoid us anyway) so we dared go in the water.... and we didn't see a freshie anyway (to Cleo's relief as she was trying to spot them as we were swimming towards the waterfall).




Florence Falls, but only partially seen from this direction.

Now we are in Darwin, our last stop in Australia before we head off to Singapore this Sunday. We loved the Mindil Beach Market, where we sampled international dishes, enjoyed a fire show and just hung out on the beach watching a beautiful sunset.




Our girls are not used to the hot weather yet, so they are in for a treat in Asia.....