Gili T--fun in the sun and water

I'm safely arrived in Gili Trawangan and did a first dive an hour after getting off the boat. I did another this morning. The island is beautiful and I have already seen so much just from the first two dives! We've seen a couple octopus, a couple sharks, a sea snake, lionfish, a cuddlefish, and a giant clam, just to name a few.

The second dive I was able to see my first wild clownfish and another white tipped reef shark. On our wall dive this morning we went to 40 meters (130 feet), which is the deepest dive I've done. They gave us bigger tanks so we were still able to get in a 65 minute dive. "going deep" is a big deal here, as the owner of our dive shop at one point had the world record for deepest dive with a rebreather and discovered his own WWII wreck off the island (which we will be diving tomorrow morning) at 45 meters deep.

I also love the island at night. Because we are on a small island next to a slightly bigger one and neither has a high population density, there is almost zero light pollution. Last night the moon wasn't even up either, and I was able to clearly see the Milky Way for the first time in my life. It looks like a thin, light cloud stretched across he sky. How appropriate that when you are on a remote island, miles from "real civilization", you're also reminded of how small you are in the great expanse of our galaxy. And, because I'm in the southern Hemisphere, I was also able to see the Southern Cross for the first time. Closer to home, there is also a good amount of phosphorescent plankton the glows blue whenever disturbed--so you see little blue lights flashing as waves break and the waves will leave them twinkling on the shore as they recede back out to the ocean. I feel like I could have stayed out there for hours, but since I had a morning dive I called it a pretty early night.

I'll be in Gili T today through Wednesday morning. On Wednesday afternoon I'll get some shopping done in Bali and then head home on Thurs! So if anybody has specific gift requests let me know before Tuesday night your time!

Monkeying around

Just visited the monkey forest sanctuary and had a great time communing with the cute, albeit aggressive, monkeys. Luckily, once they realize you don't have food they leave you alone.

Bukit Lawang Bliss

I had an incredible time in Bukit Lawang trekking in Gunung Leuser National Park. I got into my hostel later because of a delayed flight, but luckily was able to book a trek right at the hostel. We left the morning of the 5th for Bukit Lawang, a city right on the border of the park that is about 3 hours away from Medan. They drive on the left side of the road, just like Thailand and Singapore, but significantly more crazy. Even our driver seemed surprised by some of the maneuvers people in other "lanes" tried to pull. Luckily, he was safe and defensive and I felt as safe as I could on those roads.

We got into Bukit Lawang at about 1 pm and met all of the guides that work through our company along with a few from other companies. The guest house we stayed at has a bar that he locals love to come to. Their favorite thing to do (and something I've noticed all around Indonesia, including on TV) is sing. An ideal night is to have a few beers, break out the guitar an bongo drums, and belt out the favorite times everybody knows until late into the night. They love American songs, including John Denver, and old songs that they gave their own lyrics to (instead of Jingle Bells they sing about Bukit Lawang). The rest of the afternoon it rained (their "dry season" is relative) so we played cards with the guides. The other girls in my group were from Holland and Denmark. Apparently a lot of Danish and Ditch come there, because the guides spoke their respective languages very well and even knew a few songs in each language. And, of course, they also spoke excellent English. I also met an American man traveling around for a few months who had befriended one of the guides and had been in Bukit Lawan for a week already. He showed me some great videos of the jungle critters and through him I got to know the guides better.

The next morning we woke up bright and early to start our trek. We got to the National Park by passing some rubber plantations and palm oil plantations. Few people were out that day because it was market day for the town, so we had the plantations to ourselves.

After entering the park, we almost immediately got our first glimpse of orangutan: a semi wild female and her little one. The baby was about a year old and was having a good time swinging on its own a few trees away from mom. The orangutans in the park are separated into two groups: the wild and the semi wild. In the 1970's, some orangutans were kept away from the wild and were raised around people. The government outlawed the practice, but since some orangutans had never grown up wild they couldn't be counted on to find all their own food. To help, a feeding center was established as a sort of orangutan safety net to aid their transition into the wild. These are the semi wild, and since these distant relatives of ours live to be about 50 years old in the wild they still comprise a significant portion of the population in the park. The wild orangutan, on the other hand, were never in contact with humans and don't know or care about the feeding center because they can get their own food and don't trust people. When you go into the park, your likelihood of meeting a semi wild orangutan (like our first two) is highest, followed by the offspring of a semi wild (though thy never come as close), with the fully wild being the least common to see.

Along with the mom and baby orangutan, we also got to see some Thomas's leaf monkeys, which are beautiful monkeys that have a striped grey, black, and white patterns on their face and aren't found in many other places in the world.

Our campsite was beautiful and felt totally isolated--I felt like Tarzan in the wild, amidst giant trees with massive vines and hearing the loudest bugs of my life.  The morning after our trek we were even greeted by some monkey friends that like to visit to try to get some of the food scraps left at the camp site.

Saps Trek Success!

I just finished my trek through Sapa, a town in northern Vietnam that is home to many minority villages. It was absolutely stunning. I'll be taking a sleeper train tonight to get back to Hanoi and I'll write more then, when I can use a computer rather than my iPhone. Talk soon!

Back from Halong--sunburnt but happy!

I got back yesterday from my tour of Halong Bay, and it was fantastic! I went on a tour with my hostel and we were gone for three days and two nights. I did the Rock Long Rock Hard tour with Ma May Hanoi Backpackers Hostel, and I can give a very positive review with only one real annoyance. The first day we bussed for 4 hours to the shore and then went onto our junker, the Jolly Roger, for an hour and a half to get to our spot for the night. We cruised past the hundreds of islets that dot the bay. There are supposed to be almost 2000 of them, the biggest being Cat Ba Island. It's a sight like nothing you will ever see anywhere else--almost otherworldly. There are also fishing villages that nestle themselves in the karst landscape and, unless for school, childbirth, or selling their wares, they never step foot on land. They all give birth in the same place, a building set atop one of the islets. It's quite odd--the women are sent to the house to give birth but are not allowed to have any help along the way. They are left for an entire month on their own, and if they or their infant die during the time no will know or be able to help. How I would hate to be a woman in that village!

I was the only American except for our tour guide's girlfriend in a group of 40+ people. There were a group of Dutch, French Canadians, and Australians, but most people were Brits. I guess Americans just don't do SE Asia as often. Once we got to the Jolly Roger we got ready to swim--it's always ridiculously hot and humid here and you pretty much just surrender yourself to the sweat. We jumped off the boat and swam around. It being a group of young backpackers and our guide being a partying alcoholic, there were offers of free beer for people that jumped off the boat naked. I can't say I regret not participating, but it was still funny to watch. After that we went kayaking through the bay for a bit. We wanted to under and through a cave with our kayaks, but since it was high tide we couldn't fit. Instead, we moved to a different cave that we could enter and went spelunking for about an hour. The cave was pretty nasty because of all the bats and bat droppings, but it was fun to explore and we saw some good stalactites and stalactmites. Also, the limestone glistens in a pretty way when you shine light over it--it was a lovely effect.

After kayaking, we came back to the boat and had a delicious fresh seafood meal, followed by a good amount of drinking (beer never gets more expensive thatn $1.25) until I, tired as hell from traveling and jet lag, went to bed at 10. I woke up at 6:30 but couldn't really see sunrise because an islet was covering the horizon, but it was beautiful and very peaceful the sit on the deck of the ship, rocking in the bay and listening to the island bugs buzz with lfe. With our Jolly Roger cruise out of the way, it was time to go to our private island for the day, Castaway, to indulge in some great sprorting fun.

We cruised another two hours deeper into the bay, which only got more beautiful as we continued. We saw significantly more fishing villages here as well. Our private island was beatiful, and since it was now low the beach was huge. We went swimming for a while and then I learned to wakeboard, which was fun but difficult with only 8 tries! They also had climbing set up, one medium course and one difficult one, and I was able to do both without falling and/or slipping. Both climbing guides were Americans, so it was fun to talk to them and hear their story. They really wanted me to try solo climbing, which is when you get a boat and ride up to the rock face in the islets and climb without any gear. Once you get high enough you just jump back into the water, and repeat until you're too tired. It sounded really fun but I didn't have the time. Maybe next time I find myslef here.

The whole day I spent a lot of time meeting all the different groups of people--the one nice thing about traveling solo is it forces you to meet people and to be social. They all had interesting stories and had traveled quite a bit already, so I also got some helpful tips for my other destinations along the way. Everyone is so nice, and so pleased to find an American that really wants to learn about their culture. It's crazy that it was not unusual for the Dutch group that they knew 5 languages proficiently, and here I am with more language knowledge than the average American and I only know 2!

Later that night I got to know them better as we played some more drinking games and went swimming. I guess this trip is known for being a party one, but our group had a good balance and never got out of control. However, our guide wasn't so happy about that, so when he realized no one was going to be getting naked again without an incentive for free drinks he pouted and went to bed--I think him being pushy about drinking was really my only complaint about the trip. After the party was over, we went swimming again for a bit and admired the bioluminescence in the water and went to bed. We slept in huts on the beach, and about 6 people fit in each one. There were padded mats on the ground and mosquito nets, and though it was very simple I had no problem sleeping. The next morning we go up bright and early and started our cruise back to land. We boarded our minibus and after four hours of cramped driving got back to our hostel at around 5 pm. I was really tired but knew if I napped it would continue my jet lag and make it harder to go to sleep again, so I just relaxed in the hostel and got some dinner. After a good night's sleep, I got up and took my time with breakfast before going on a walking tour of Old Town Hanoi, which I'll talk about in a separate post.