Off to Ceylon

Whenever we meet fellow travellers, especially those who are travelling as long as we are, we naturally compare notes. One of the biggest topics is of course where we have been and where we are going. One of the countries that came up often enough was Sri Lanka and it always received rave reviews. We heard such great things, so many times, that our conversation skipped "Do you think we should go to Sri Lanka?" directly to "when we are in Sri Lanka..." - it was really a no brainer!

We arrived in Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka, on a beautiful sunny afternoon. The guesthouse we were staying at was actually just south of downtown Colombo in an old beach town called Mount Lavinia. The first thing we did after being settled in was run down to the beach to put our toes in the Indian Ocean for the first time!

We spent two days in the city and visited some of the small Hindu and Buddhist temples that are sprinkled everywhere.

The biggest and most unique one is Sri Ponnambalam Vanesar Kovil. It's a hindu temple completely made of stone.

The Dutch and British presence is noticeable throughout the city (the Portuguese were actually the first to arrive but it was in 1505-1658 so not much left around from that period).

Old city hall during British rule.

British built lighthouse.

National museum. Very colonial looking building.

Surrounding these colonial legacies is the colourful Sri Lankan culture.

We spent Sunday night at Galle Face Park where thousands of families come out to fly kites.

This kite was especially big; there were 8 people holding the robe!

The more we explored and the more people watching we did, we could definitely highlight some of the British influence in the Sri Lankan culture: everyone says "please", "thank you" and "you're welcome", Tom is reffered to as "Sir" and I as "Madam" and tea is served English style (pot of tea, milk, sugar, tea cups with saucer). It just has this air of British properness mixed with the colourful Sri Lankan culture!

Our next stop was to Galle about two hours south of Colombo. We took the train which turned out to be an incredible adventure! We bought second class tickets but thanks to a "friend" (read con artist) we ended up in third class standing.

Marie was not happy. Tom was loving it.

Yes. Tom was standing out the door as the train was going.

Evidence of Canadian foreign aid through the Colombo Plan!

Looks a bit old...

Ok about the con artist. We met this local man at the station in Colombo while waiting for the train. He sat down, talked to us about how he had lived in Germany, visited Switzerland and Austria, and then gave us a great tip on a place to go. He explained that we should get off the train at the stop before Galle to visit some government run gem mine where you can see the mine in action and then buy gems for cheap. He then started adding on other stops in the area: go on a boat tour around some lagoon with 68 islands, go to a turtle hatchery and then finish at a temple with a large Buddha. He suggested hiring a tuk-tuk from the train station for the day and we can leave our big bags with him while we go to each of these sites. At first we though, ok that sounds interesting and he kept saying that no other foreigners go there so it's very quiet and reasonably priced, which appealed to us. For the whole train ride, he kept talking about it and how great it is, how much each stop should cost, how much the tuk-tuk should cost...To the point where we were almost convinced that we were getting off at that stop with him. Finally, we were able to have a quiet conversation together and agreed that something felt off and that we didn't want trust some random tuk-tuk driver to watch our bags for us. When we told this guy that we decided to continue on to Galle, he started insisting that we had to go today! Tomorrow it will be so busy! There is no time to go to Galle, drop off your bags and then come back, it had to be now! When he realized he was not going to convince us he left with a "ok safe travels" and got off at the stop before the one he said he was going too. Weirdo. Either he was getting a cut from all the fees we were going to be paying or he and the tuk-tuk driver were going to steal our bags...Part of getting an authentic experience when travelling is speaking with the locals. Unfortunately some people are more intersted in your money then you, like this con artist, but we have also met many genuinely friendly and helpful people. Like the two men in the train who made sure we got off at the right stop and helped me find a spot for my big bag so people wouldn't trip on it.

We safely made it to Galle and visited the Fort: First a Portuguese fort, turned Dutch fort, turned British fort, turned historical tourist stop. Since it's low season it turned out to be a pretty cool to just walk through the old city visiting some old buildings.

Dutch Reformed Church

Working clock tower thanks to some good British mechanisms from 1882.

Justice buildings.

Coat of Arms from 1668 (Dutch era).

Anglican Church.

Evening cricket game.

Walking on top of the old fort walls was also an experience. The views were beautiful and its always fun to walk along the top of a fort wall imagining what it was like back in 1800's!

View of the city from the fort walls.

I admit I went through a bit of a culture shock in these first few days. I'm not sure if I adapted to the South East Asian culture so quickly or if it's because we had been there before that I didn't feel like I had a culture shock then. Or maybe it's because I have never been to this part of the world that it hit me and took me by surprise! The people here are friendly and the food is delicious but it's just the little culture nuances that really threw me off. The big one being the head waggle! Just like in India, everyone does the little side to side waggle for everything, it can mean "no problem", "thank you", "yes", "I'm listening" and apparently countless more. What throws me off is when I ask a question and I get a waggle as a response. My immediate thought is that they didn't understand my question or no I can't have X. It hit me when I was choosing items from a buffet: I would point at a dish and the server would waggle his head but not put it in my plate. So I would nod my head and say "yes", he would then waggle his head and not put it in my plate. So I thought ok maybe the combo we bought does not include this dish so I would point at the next thing and then the same point-waggle and not put in dish-yes and nod-waggle and not put in dish scenario would happen again. This is when I realized he can't hear me say "yes" through the glass and he doesn't understand what I mean when I nod. His waggle was a question: do you want this? I was supposed to waggle back, I think. Because I'm incapable of doing the head waggle, the thumbs up was a good alternative and I ended up with a tasty lunch!

That's the other great thing about Sri Lanka: all different foods! No more noodles, soy sauces, stir fries or dumplings. We're in the land of spicy rice and curry :)

A little history on the name: The country was always refered to as Lanka by the Sinhalese and Serendip by the Arab traders (the origin of the word Serendipity!). But the Portuguese named the island Ceilao meaning "the island of Sinhalese", which the Dutch then changed to Ceylan and the British finally to Ceylon. In 1972 the name "Lanka" was restored with the addition of "Sri" as a title of respect: Sri Lanka.

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The Big Three: Bali, Gili and Lombok

The main purpose of coming to Indonesia was that Tom wanted to gain more diving experience. In his research some of the best diving spots for learning were on Bali and the Gili Islands.

From Java it was an easy ferry ride across to Bali where we stayed in Pemuteran, a small village with a lot of good dive shops that do trips to the nearby island Menjangan. Once again, while Tom was diving, I snorkelled. The water was incredibly clear with something like 20m visibility. The coral here is the best we've seen, which means it's actually alive...Unfortunately the snorkeling I experienced at Sipadan in Sabah was just so incredible that I fear that all snorkeling from now on, regardless of how amazing it is, will only be "good" at best!

Leaving Java

Pemuteran beach

Off on our diving/snorkelling trip

Tom diving below me

Colourful Nudibranch

Bali is the only traditionally Hindu island in the worlds biggest Muslim country, although mosques are popping up everywhere on the island. It definitely has a different vibe and one of the biggest noticeable differences are the Hindu temples that dot the island, from large public temples to small family ones. We spent a day riding bikes around discovering the smaller, quieter areas and visiting a couple of temples.

Men and women have to wear a sarong with sash to enter any temple. Also, women who are menstruating cannot enter.

After taking this photo, this guy attacked Tom. Tom is fine.

Family temple at our guesthouse

Unfortunately, Bali for us has been way to commercialized. There's this two tier system: one for the locals and one for the tourists. The tourist tier sucks. You pay four times more than the locals, you're directed to private drivers, forced on tours, directed to restaurants that serve "Western food"; it's just too hard to find the authentic through all this. In the end, we decided to skip Bali and drive east along the north coast of the Island to Padangbai where there are ferries for the Gili islands.

Because we refused to pay the absurd tourist prices, we spent some time going back and forth between people offering different ways to get to Padangbai. We could take a Bemo (a mini van that runs like a public bus) or a "big bus" that may or may not be running that day because it was Independence Day. In the end, as I was standing with our bags on the side of the road, a gravel truck pulled over and asked where we were headed. We negotiated a price of 20,000 IDR per person (compared to 100,000 IDR with the other guys), threw our bags in the truck bed and jumped in! In the end I guesss we ended up with a private driver for a much cheaper price (private drivers are 700,000 IDR!). The drive was really nice and we had some great views of the ocean and the big volcanos on Bali. We drove through rice paddys, tobacco and corn fields and through villages with frangipani trees flanking the road.

The next morning, we were on a ferry to Gili Air. There are three Gili islands: Trawangan, Meno and Air. We chose Air because it's less developed than Trawangan and less posh than Meno. It also had several PADI dive shops for Tom to choose from. In the end, he decided to get his PADI Advanced Open Water with Nitrox certification. This allows him to go down deeper (30m vs 18m) and the Nitrox allows him to stay down longer because it has less nitrogen in the mix (32% oxygen vs 21% for the regular tanks). With the course he was able to try a few other "PADI Adventure Dives": Fish Identification, Peak Performance Buoyancy and a Night Dive!

Our first glimpse of Gili Air.

Tom going on his night dive!

Unfortunately, I ended up with an ear infection which means I couldn't go snorkeling. So instead, I spent my days doing yoga, an introduction to meditation class, got a massage, did a lot of reading and worked on my tan! I have to admit though, I'm officially bored with beaches; I need some adventure!

Volcano on Bali at sunset

We spent our last couple of days in Indonesia in a town called Mataram on Lombok island. The town itself is not much but a sprawling city so on our last day we decided to rent a motorbike! We did a 150km trip around the south side of the island and went all the way down to the ocean. Tom drove the whole thing and I navigated; that worked out well because I don't think I could have handled the crazy traffic and road rules! We drove through some villages, through fields of tobacco, corn and chili peppers.

Fuelling up!

Indonesian gas station

Beating the rice off the stalk

Tobacco field

Our time in Indonesia has now come to an end and we both have some mixed feelings about our time here. The image we had of Indonesia was not at all what we encountered. In Java, Bali and Lombok it is much more developed than expected, we saw more tourists than anywhere else we had been (especially Italians and French), and we encountered many more scammers than anywhere else. An example of this are those in the transport business. Anyone who's travelled to developing countries know that you get ripped off at any point of entry to a city (train, airport, ferry, bus) by the local transport. Which meant we had to develop a strategy in order for us to get an idea on the true, local price so we could better bargain and know when we were getting scammed. Our strategy has been to just wait. When we arrive in a new town we go have lunch with the locals.

The benefit in this is that not only do you get a local experience but in the thirty minutes or so of eating with them, smiling with them and trying out the few Indonesian words we know with them, we become friends. We are more than just foreigners now. So when we tell them that we are trying to get to Pemuteran, as an example, we are warned by our new friends to take the bus at the true bus station (there are fake "bus terminals" where foreigners get tricked into paying for a private car instead of the public bus) and how much to pay. In this case, we were told repeatedly to only pay 20,000 IDR per person. So of course we are now ready when we enter the bus terminal for the guy running towards us "Pemuteran? Yes of course, that bus here it will cost 40,000 IDR per person". Naturally we said, with a smile, "Tidak, mahal" (No, expensive) we will only pay 20,000 IDR just like the locals. After he refused, we sat down on a bench and waited. It took another thirty minutes of waiting (negotiations interspersed with small talk, getting to know each other, food tips and what to do in Bali), before we finally settled on 25,000 IDR per person right as the bus was leaving. We later found out that we got one of the best prices because most people pay anywhere from 40,000 to 60,000 IDR. We even heard a story of one guy who paid 300,000 IDR per person!

Serious negotiations going on

In Indonesia, there is alwayss a middle man. This guy took our money and gave the correct amount of 20,000 IDR to the driver and kept the 5,000 IDR for himself. This happens EVERYWHERE. During another negotiation on Lombok, after another middle man insisted that the bus ride was 20,000 IDR per person, Tom turned around and said, with a smile of course, "ah ok, so 15,000 for the driver and 5,000 for you" and the guy just threw his arms in the air and said "no no no no". In the end I think he realized that we knew his game and we ended up on a bus that only cost 15,000...interesting.

On the positive side, Indonesians are the friendliest people we have ever met in all our travels. People will always say "hello mister" (yes, I'm a mister too), "where you go?", "where you come from?" and "thank you for coming to my country". Even as we drove by on our motorbike kids would yell out. Everyone is eager to talk and especially practice their english. Some of our most memorable experiences will be because of the people we met.

Balinese man who gave us tips on wear to eat good pork

Lombok Bakso man! He was very excited that we liked Bakso.

The crazy girls that all worked in the area. They were so much fun and excited!

Boys at a coffee shop in Lombok; the guy in the middle played and sang some American songs for us. These guys were hilarious!

The food here has also been incredible. Neither of us knew much about Indonesian cuisine before and we've definitely come away with several dishes that we will be making at home! One challenge will be finding that sweet soya sauce that is a staple here...

Babi Gulling - the famous Bali roasted suckling pig.

Bakso; meatballs in a beef broth with noodles

Soto Ayam; chicken soup in a lemongrass broth with noodle

Typical Indonesian spread found at any Warung (street restaurant)

A lot of fish on Gili Air

Fish curry, grilled fish, served with nasi (rice) and kerupuk (crackers)

Lombok specialty: ground beef, lemongrass and coconut kabobs

Nasi Campur; A very common dish across Indonesia. It's basically rice with a little bit of everything that the cook has made that day. Always seams to include a fried chicken, fried tofu and fried tempeh.

Drinking some arak; Indonesian palm wine. It tastes a bit like sake and has an alcohol content of about 20% although it's usually homemade.

Murtabak; a big deep fried crepe stuffed with meat, veggies and egg.

Fresh fruit juices

Salak (snake fruit); looks and has the texture of giant garlic cloves but tastes citrusy and sweet

Jambu Air. Has the texture of an apple but has a rose water flavour.

Our next trip to Indonesia will be to the more remote islands such as Sumatra, Sumbawa, Flores and Papua. Tom is already planning a diving trip to Komodo and Raja Ampat!

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