Thursday, February 18, 2016
Ubud last gasp
Wednesday, February 17, 2016
Ubud birding
Cooking class
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Ubud
Monday, February 15, 2016
Relaxation Station
Thursday, February 11, 2016
Five Keys to Happy Travels
Five Keys to Happy Travels
Always do the pat down. Referring to your passport. Especially if you get upgraded to first class and get shitcanned, we know this from personal experience.
Keep some T.P. on the quick release. Tummys get weird & US sanitation is a national treasure. So having some TP on your person is the way to go.
Learn some language basics. As we learned in kindergarten, Please and Thank You, warm peoples cockles, esp. if they can understand you.
At some point, be in control of your food. For trips spanning weeks find a self-catering place where you can cook up some familiar foods & have some tummy normalcy.
Keep a travel journal. At the end of each trip I ask myself the same questions & record them in my travel journal: trip takeaways, what do I wish I packed, etc. Then I read my travel journal before packing for a trip and I am set!
Did you know we are celebrities?
One thing that happened to us in India was several times we were asked to take our photo with a family. We found it odd then, but it happened again in Indonesia. This time it was much more frequent. The first round of photo shoots were in Berstagi where we were asked 5 times for photos. The requests came mostly from children, but one family asked to snap some pics with your favorite celebrities.
In Medan, it happened again. We were asked 4 times for photos. In addition, I was also interviewed (recorded via cell phone) by a group of kids. Here they are after the interview
Its both weird and awesome to be asked for your photo. The whole act seems a little bizarre to us, as what are they going to do with the photos? Why would they want a photo of some random westerner? At the same time, it's sweet. The requesters get really excited to both ask you and even more excited when you say yes. They also expect not just a photo but a photo shoot! We both feel special because they ask and leave the encounter with a large grin. We expect that this won’t happen in Bali where there are more western tourists.
Tuesday, February 9, 2016
Lazy Americans
Sunday, February 7, 2016
Berestagi, Lake Toba and Beyond
So we had two long travel days back to back to get to Lake Toba. Lake Toba is a local destination for Sumatrans to vacation at. And we were going there during a national holiday - no not mardia gras for our LA peeps but instead chinese new year.
We left Bukit Luwang around 8am on Saturday, and had a long drive to Berstagi. Its not distance but traffic, traffic in Medan is horrific. Its just pure chaos and does not appear to have any rules of the road. We got to Berestagi around 4pm, and visited the local market. We felt like local celebrities in the market. But we picked up some souvenirs. We stayed at this absolutely dreadful hotel that night, we were awoken by karaoke, call to prayers, chickens, crying puppy and children throughout the night.
Anyway, on Sunday we made the trek to Lake Toba and had several stops along the way. The first stop was Pecaarrn Village, a local Batak Village. The Batak are the local tribe to this part of Sumatra, and famous across Indonesia. Our Guide, Sool, does not think particularly highly of the men as lazy and not loyal. They are also mostly christian, whereas the rest of Indonesia is Muslim. We got a tour of the village, which is an actual village and not a museum. We saw the traditional houses and got to see inside of them. It was very interesting to see how 8 families would coexist in about 1000 sq ft.
After that village, we stopped at a local hot spot, a waterfall. It was like everyone in Sumatra had stopped there to see it. Due to the weather, we really couldn't see the waterfall.
After the waterfall, we headed to a Batak Museum. It was the site of where one of the local Batak kings lived. We got to see his house, and got a bit of history on the Batak people and their culture. The site has fallen into a bit of disrepair. There is a pair of buffalo horns for each king.
Following the waterfall, we drove to Paparet where we had lunch and took the ferry to Lake Toba. It's been raining the last days, but it was nice to be in a town vs. a small village. We have been constrained to eating and drinking at our hotels, but we are going to sample some of the local delights at a variety of places. Last night, the tour company bought us dinner to make up for the failed taxi pickup. They provided quite the feast.
Friday, February 5, 2016
What did we do at night while trekking?
3rd day trekking
2nd day- the trekking was hard, the animals scarce
Wednesday, February 3, 2016
First day of jungle trekking
Monday, February 1, 2016
Jungle Trekking Tomorrow
Vacation Mode Activate...form of Jungle Fun
Saturday, January 30, 2016
Still the middle of a really long travel day....
Friday, January 29, 2016
And we are off
Wednesday, January 27, 2016
Dreaming of orangutans, frogmouths..but not leeches!

But that doesn't really stop me. Seeing an Orangutan has been a dream of mine. As we are days away from heading to Indonesia, dreams of Orangutans are dancing in my head.
As are dreams of this little guy- a Sumatran Frogmouth. Frogmouths are nocturnal birds related to Nightjars. I really, really, really want to see one. As well as a laundry list of other birds from my Birds of Sumatra powerpoint flashcard presentation.
I'll let ya know how it goes.