and the west coast gave me adventures!

Ok, so I start off my trip Wednesday morning at about 5:30 am when I have to wake up to pack my bags since I was too sick the night before. Not that my throat felt any better, but somehow I threw my dirty clothes into a different bag, grabbed my tennis shoes, camera, and charger... and out the door to the bus I went. The bus was a whole new story and the medicine must have made my stomach hurt b/c I didn't eat any food since I could barely see a hole through my throat. I almost turned around and came home, but again... the trip was non refundable and I was going to make it... so that's what I did. Our bus was late and we were worried we weren't going to make the tour, but we finally got there and got on the bus and I quickly thereafter passed out.

Thankfully, Kristen is awesome and explained to the group that I pretty much couldn't talk and was trying to get better. So that morning I slept until we reached the Pinnacles. But before that everyone on the bus did their introductions, so let me give you a basis of how the trip was set up.

There were 21 of us and a bus driver/tour guide in a pretty big bus that hauled a trailer. There were people on the bus ranging from 20 - 45ish. We had people from the US, Australians, a German, English, Irish, French, and Sweedish. There were a few couples both young and old and a handful of single backpackers and a couple students. So all in all it made for a really good mix of people and everyone really got along, or got on as Aussie's say it, well. For all of our meals we had food in coolers (known as "eskies" in Australia) and plates and everything packed in bins in the trailer along with all of our stuff. For every meal it was a group effort to get all of the stuff out, cook, and clean up. We had breakfast and dinner at the hostels we stayed in and then usually fixed lunch at a beach or picnic shelter along the way where there were bbq pits and at least a water fountain to wash our stuff off with. It was a TON of driving and our van had a really annoying air conditioning belt screeching that occurred pretty frequently, but overall a good trip. Ok, back to the first things...

The first stop that we made was at the Pinnacles. These are large formations of limestone, broken down sea shells, sand. There are a few different theories on how they were formed and still today no one knows exactly how, or why they were formed. But here they stand in a big desert area and they look like huge rocks sticking out of the sand.





This day we also went sandboarding. Pictures of that are to come later because they are on Kristen's camera. We hiked up huge sand dunes then used wooden boards that looked like snowboards to slide down the dunes on like a sled. It was fun, but after I hiked up the sand dune once I was out of energy and sat down to watch everyone else. After everyone had enough sand in their pants to fulfill their fun, we headed back on the bus to keep driving and eventually got up to Kalbarri where we were going to hike the gorge the next morning.

At this point, I'm about to die and haven't eaten anything since Bali. One of the Irish backpackers happened to be a nurse and pretty much told me I needed to go somewhere to get medicine or I was going to be worse off than I was now. So she told our tour guide and he found a clinic for me that night, so off we go. I went to the clinic and I think this old lady nurse felt really bad for me. Obviously, in the middle of Australia they don't think having doctors on duty is necessary... so there was no doctor in town, or in the next 3 towns over for that matter, because it was a full days driving to get to the next doctor that could actually give me a prescription. So she called that doctor and told him my symptoms and got the go ahead to give me a 'couple days worth' of medicine. Well, basically I told her I wasn't stopping till I got back to Perth so she gave me enough antibiotics and pain killers to get me back to Perth, her version of "a couple extra". So that worked out and after a day I was eating again.

So the next morning, the tour guide wanted to leave me behind but that wasn't happening. I really wanted to see the gorge and wasn't going to sit around a hostel all day, so off I went even though breathing was difficult haha Still it was one of my favorite parts of the trip...



This is a picture of the creature that left a fossil in the rock of his tail, pictured below...

This is the fossil...



















So we saw the fossil, and then hiked for about 3 hours around the gorge. Thank god there were some older couples on the trip, because I was definitely bringing up the rear with them. Climbing and hiking around was exhausting, but definitely worth it.


This particular part of the Kalbarri gorge was leading into what is called the Z bend. Another place we went to was called Nature's Window.

This picture below is of the bottom of the gorge after we made our way down there.














This is what they call "Nature's Window" and it was in a totally separate location from the gorge but a beautiful view. Even though this entire day there were flies everywhere, and I seriously mean everywhere... in your ears, nose, eyes, mouth... yeh definitely tons of flies and the people that bought the fly hats were genius.







So after our hiking trip we went back to the hostel and made lunch, I made jello... then we were back in the bus to head up to Shark Bay for the night. On the way we stopped at what is called 'Shell Beach' and that is the picture on the left. The entire beach consists of tiny little shells and they are sometimes up to 15 meters deep!! This is one of the only beaches like this where the shells have not been crushed up and smashed into sand.



This is another view of Coral Beach as the sun was starting to go down. While we were here, Kristen decided to get in the water even though she was the only one. While she was playing catch and getting a ball out of the water she asked our guide, "Umm... are there snakes in this water?!" Our guide slowly thought and said, "Umm... noo?" and she then quickly yelled, "Oh yes there are!" as she bolted out of the water. As we all crowded around to see we could clearly make out what was a sea snake. Sea snakes are one of the deadliest snakes alive and they are also the only snake that can make the decision whether or not to inject their venom. Needless to say, thank god she got out of the water fast and we didn't have to worry about that...

So after that we took a short trip across to Eagle's Bluff to get some pictures of the sunset. Our tour guide sped pretty fast so that we could make it in time to catch the view, and it was absolutely stunning!








So after the sunset we headed up to Shark Bay where we stayed at the Monkey Mia resort where we could see the dolphins the next morning. We had dinner, and I actually ate.. huge progress!!
After dinner we headed down to the beach to hang out for a bit as a group, it wasn't but 5 minutes later and we saw dolphins about 4 feet away from us in the water just playing around. They were there all night long in crystal clear water. But we had been warned not to touch them because a) we'd be in huge trouble and kicked out and b) because sometimes the dolphins are known to attack a bit if they are in an unknown situation etc. So we left them be but enjoyed their playful nature and how close they were. The next morning, we got to see them up close and personal again, and some people from our tour group even got to feed them.

So that was a good day, and after that we headed back to the bus to head up to Coral Bay so that we could get a good nights sleep and be ready for our adventures the next day. The day in Coral Bay was an optional activity day, but our tour guide raved about this manta ray/snorkeling adventure so I did that with Kristen and it was well worth it!

On our way out on the boat we immediately saw some dolphins just swimming and hanging around the boat. Sign of a good day for sure.

Our first spot was a snorkel location and we all tested our gear and snorkeled around. There was some really deep reef (this is all along the Ningaloo Reef) and then there was some shallow reef, too that we couldn't even swim over top. Our guides however took us through a break in the reef to hover over one big cauliflower reef and after about a minute of hovering we saw sharks swimming below us which was crazy!! They were reef sharks though and they were at what is known as a cleaning station. This is a known location by the instructors where sharks always come to get their gills cleaned out, so basically like a dentist appointment for the sharks. They were so close to us, it was absolutely nuts! Not even 4 feet away, and I was definitely freaking out.

Our next expedition was to swim with the manta rays. Wow is this a process... they use spotter planes to find the manta rays and then give the boats the coordinates. So the boats then pretty much chase the manta rays until they spot one, then a guide jumps in the water to catch up with it and follow it. While all this is going on one group of snorkelers is ready on the back of the boat to jump in. When the guide has found the manta ray and is swimming with it they yell "go go go" on the boat, meaning for the group to jump in and swim directly to the guide. So you swim with all your might and catch up to the guide and look down and the picture on the left is what you see! It was incredible to see them, and they were even closer than the sharks! Some of the manta rays were really fast, and others slowed down and turned around, and spun so you could see underneath of it. They can span up to 7 meters long! We had 3 groups on our boat and all went 3 times, but since I was in the last group they let us go a 4th time because not everyone got a good look our 3rd time. You had to be a pretty strong swimmer to be able to keep up with the manta ray if it was going fast, and it was exhausting. But our 4th time the manta ray started off really fast and then decided to flip over and come back toward the group. I was right over top of it and saw it flipping and turning around and it was so neat to see! They can weigh a ton, but just float around filter feeding. So that was a really cool experience none the less, and definitely memorable!

Our next stop was the turtle sanctuary in the water. We couldn't actually get in the water here, but then we moved to a snorkel spot called, 'The Maze' and actually saw turtles swimming there. The snorkeling there was amazing, and I truly felt like I was in Finding Nemo or The Little Mermaid. These pictures show the turtles that we saw - they are actually from another girls underwater digital camera, but they turned out really good so I thought I'd use her pictures to show you what I saw!














At some points we could also see little fish nibbling at the top of the turtle's shell, and I swear it was a scene in finding nemo!
We saw a ton of other stuff too, like this blue spotted sting ray. This is a picture of one that was up close in the water, but we saw this while we were out on the reef too. We also saw star fish, sea cucumbers, beautiful coral, lots of fish, little clown fish, and a really large sting ray that had its tail eaten off. I was amazed at everything we saw while we were at this snorkel site, and would love to go back! Definitely the best of the entire trip!




So after our full day of adventures at Coral Bay (where mind you there was also a salt water croc on the loose that had killed a person and we were swimming in the water where it was found the day after we returned home... it was found in the water where we were swimming with the manta rays... not safe!!) we headed our way up to Exmouth, which is at the northern most point of the Ningaloo Reef.

On the way we stopped at the stromatolites, which are one of the oldest living things on this planet... yes older than the dino's. They are actually living rocks. They create oxygen in the air, and this is one of the only places in the world that they can be found in such high quantities. There are smaller versions of these closer to the shore that look like rubber mats in the water. You can also see what looks like tire ruts carved in those sheets of the rocks, which is actually when they were pushing wooden carriages through the shallow water to try to load things on to the ships, which destroyed those sections of the stromatolites forever. It was really cool to see these even though they are a bunch of rocks, it is one of the only places in the world that they are accesible to humans to see and they are part of the reason why we can survive on this earth today!


So we continued our way up to Exmouth and stayed there for 2 nights. Our full day in Exmouth we went to 2 different snorkel locations. The first one was called Oyster Stacks and it was really rocky and hard to get in and out of the water, but fortunately for me someone knew what they were doing and this kind man reached out his arms and helped me get out without a scrape. Every other person that got in the water came out with cuts and scrapes, success for me!
Then we went to the famous Turquoise Bay which is where we made our semi decent pyramid on the beach. We did some snorkeling here too and saw some cool stuff, but for the most part I spent this day on the beach. There was a snorkel place called the drift right here, basically you swam in and let the current take you over the coral but you had to be careful to get out of the current in time before it hit the point of the bay and turned into a massive rip tide current thing that was apparently really dangerous. So I wasn't extremely comfortable doing that, so we went in for part of that and saw a tiger shark and some more coral, then I swam out before the end. But other people saw more sharks, sting rays, and turtles around this area, too.

Also at Exmouth we celebrated Kristen's 21st birthday, which was a hit. It was also our tour guides birthday and one other girl from hong kong's birthday all on Easter Sunday! So we celebrated Saturday night and all got dressed in costumes made out of trash bags and had a great night.

On our way leaving Exmouth we stopped at Vlaming Head Lighthouse that is no longer in use. There was also a radio tower that was used in WWII that was blown over by a cyclone that hit the area. But WWII is when Exmouth really came into existence. The major use of this area was for the US to keep contact and intercept radio communications during WWII. At first the Australian's didn't like it because they were not allowed on the US base, but now there is a mutual agreement and the area is dually staffed and monitored, just obviously not using the same equipment.



So we started our 8.5 hour drive after our stay at Exmouth, that was long. On the way we did stop at a banana plantation and get chocolate covered frozen bananas, they were tasty :-)


We also obviously passed the Tropic of Capricorn and stopped like all tourists would to take some picutres.



And this picture was taken out the bus window and is what
the real Australia looks like when you aren't prancing around on beaches on the coast!







That night we had a farmstay on a farm that grows mainly wheat type products and has sheep. Obviously the farms aren't doing too good in Australia if they are breaking into tourism, but if you ask me the farmer is smart and is in it for the long haul because he is now consistently supplementing his funds so that he can continue farming without debt and without worrying about having a bad season, which has been more typical than not in the past 5 years.

So at the farm stay we could sleep outside if we wanted to, and so I decided the stars were nice and I would give it a whirl. Well I took my swag down and was following our tour guide and few other people that were sleeping outside that night, and we all assumed our guide would know a good place to lay out. Well that was wrong. He walked straight into horse poop, then continued to lay down is swag and sleeping bag and plop down for the night. I then proceeded to tell him he was ridiculous because he was laying in poop. Not just old poop, but pretty fresh poop... that smelled bad. I couldn't believe it, what an idiot. I mean really... if I wanted to sleep in horse poop, well I can do that at my own house. But I don't need to do that while I'm touring around. There was a nice grassy area about 30 feet away that would have been just as nice and not a dirt ground with straw and tons of poop. So I dragged my swag onto the grass and went to hang out with the group for a bit because it was our last night, and there was no way I was laying in poop with our guide... what's worse is that Kristen stayed down there with the guide in the poop! I mean really... do you honestly follow someone that leads you to sleep in poop?! I would hope not, but apparently everyone doesn't always think for themselves these days.. that's another story.

Anyway, so rest of the group (aka the irish and english, because they are the ones that stay up and drink and chat) and I hung out on the porch and talked some more and I drank my water with my antibiotics (don't worry Mom and Dad, I'm not that ridiculous). It was nice to finally be able to talk for myself and get to know the group. But when I went down to get in my swag for the night, dew had already taken over and gotten the whole thing soggy. So I decided it would be in my best interest not to sleep in a wet and cold bed outside since I was sick and I went back into the room (where I had also seen a mouse scurry across the floor earlier) and enjoyed the comfort of a bed.

So the next morning we had pancakes and then were off for our final leg of the trip back to Perth. On the way we stopped at one of my absolute favorite places. The Hutt River Principality.

There is a man named Prince Leonard, and he created his own country. He is about 85 years old now, but he did this when he was a young farmer in the area. There was a huge limit put on how many crops they could grow, and it was not nearly enough to make a profit. In the Australian law it said that if there were some sort of crisis like this, then somehow you could seceed and form your own country. Well this man is a genius because he did exactly that, and the Australian government has been after him ever since! He has been taken to court by the government and tax department at least 8 times, and he has won every single time. I guess the government never thought it would go this far, but the Prince is about to get his own seat in the United Nations, and when he does that Australia will have absolutely no jurisdiction to take him to court any longer and then he will be able to build the international airport that is in his plans for the future. This man is truly brilliant and quite funny and sarcastic on top of that.

He has won a medal, something like the 'french gold star' and the only 2 other people to get this award have been Queen Elizabeth and one of the presidents of the US.. he is the 3rd to get this award and he said that although he wasn't the 1st ranked world leader, he would get his way there eventually. He has totally found loop holes through almost every law in Australia and he doesn't even pay taxes. He has created his own currency, flag, and postal system, too. Also he set it up as a principality so that he can not be overthrown and one of his children will be able to take his place next.

The whole idea is absolutely absurd, but to be honest it's also quite impressive. In this picture you can see his wife, Princess Shirley. She isn't as sharp as Prince Leonard, but she's right up there. He knew everything about all of our passports from different countries and knew each hologram that was on them as we all got our visas from HRP. The whole place looks just like another run down farm in Australia, but really it is so much more! And there are other people living there besides his family. Just the fact that a man of his age can still be fighting the government, and winning to keep his own country... well I'd say he's had a pretty amazing life and he doesn't plan on stopping any time soon. However, unfortunately I know that his health is deteriorating. Apparently the tour group 2 days after us didn't really get to talk to him at all because he was sick so they didn't stay long. But with my group he was perky and running around to show us different things and take pictures with us, and he was quite the entertainer. So kudos to him!



And last but not least, we stopped at a wild life park where they work on rehabilitating injured animals etc. and work purely off of donations to keep the farm running. This was a good final stop to complete our experience, and of course fun feeding all of the animals.
I really enjoyed the roos! The red ones were the softest!















There were also snakes there, tons of birds, even deer. The mountain goats were pretty fun, and I enjoyed feeding them the most because they made some pretty hilarious noises.





There were also emus, which is one of the animals on the Australian Crest - the other is the Kangaroo. The reason why these 2 animals are on the crest is because they cannot walk or hop backwards at all, and Australia was supposed to be seen as a country that is always moving forward with time and never falling back.

There was this huge croc as well

And some dingoos - which are like crosses between dogs and wolves that are found in the wild in Australia and in the wilderness have a very short life span because of all the enemies and harm they come into contact with.









So after all that we headed back to Perth and then caught a cab home. By then I could talk again and was even eating normally. But it was a long long long time in a bus, and that was exhausting to be perfectly honest. About the time I made it home all I wanted to do was stare at a wall and lay in my bed and not talk to anyone. So I've been relaxing and doing a whole lot of nothing since I've returned. I did however make it to the doctor here to get some more medicine to totally knock my tonsilitis out and he gave me some extras, too just incase I get it again. (I'm really starting to like Australian doctors/nurses and their extra pills).

Now that I'm back the weather here is great. In the evenings you can wear jeans and a t-shirt and be perfect, which is what I like!! The Australian's say it's cold... I say it's comfortable. It's also field hockey season for guys here (not girls like in the states) and one of my roommates plays and so does another friend of one of the Elon girls so we have started to go to their games which is fun and gives us something other to do than go out at night. So I'm becoming a mom and taking pictures of my roommate since he is a freshman and I'm going to make him send them back home to his parents. I have a feeling his mom will like them... I mean she makes him about 20 frozen dinners every couple of weekends when he goes home so he never has to cook while he is here, he just heats up a meal in the microwave and it is like home cooked. So, that just gives me the feeling he's a mamma's boy. So anyway, the hockey games are fun haha

But, it's also back to reality now because class starts again on Monday. So I'm going to the beach one more time before break is over to rest up and prepare myself to focus on school work for 3 hours a day. (shouldn't be that hard, but when you've been doing nothing but traveling for 2 weeks.. it get's a little difficult) Then I only really have a month and half until I'm finished! Which is crazy! I'm giving it one last effort to get a job, but again nothing is looking too promising... but it's worth it!



Sorry for such long posts, but I wanted to get it all on here so that I don't forget everything that I did either.

Love and miss everyone back home!!

Bali Gave Me Stories

Well after being gone for over two weeks, I both love and hate my jail cell room again. It was nice to be out and doing stuff so I don't like that I'm sitting inside again a lot, but at the same time the comfort and peace of quietness in my own room is more than amazing after all that traveling.

Basically Curtin (the school I'm at) gave us 2 whole weeks back to back for Easter break which = travel time for international students. Since I don't have class on Fridays, my friend Kristen and I left Thursday afternoon after our class for our 1st trip. Kristen is my sorority sister that is also studying here in Australia, and she is the one that I've been traveling with for the past two weeks just for the reference because I'm sure I'll use her name. So we took off and had a few adventures and I'll do my best to be inclusive but concise... however I tend to get long winded so sorry if the posts are super long!


First up... Bali, Indonesia
Week 1

Well Kristen and I caught a taxi to the airport and we were off to Bali. It was about a 4.5-5 hour flight and luckily we got exit row seats and were set to go. We got to our hotel a little after midnight and pretty much went to sleep right after that.

Day 1 in Bali.
We booked a fairly cheap hotel and it was nice enough for the two of us, and all that mattered was that it had air conditioning. The only downfall was that the shower was not air conditioned and the water also tasted salty if you got it in your mouth. We did have to drink all bottled water, and you didn't really want to drink anything else besides water because it was so hot. Not just hot, but humid. It was ridiculous even trying to put makeup on or brush your hair, because as soon as you stepped outside your hair was up in a ponytail and your face was dripping (and I mean literally dripping) with sweat. So that was kind of gross, but you do what you can to forget about it.

View of the driveway to the beach from our hotel!

The first day we went shopping and exploring around the town that we were staying in, Kuta. There are tons of shops and a good couple blocks that reminded me of the silk alley in China and I think Diagon Alley if I remember correctly from when I went there... But there were tons of little cut out spaces that were all open with tons of shirts, dresses, shoes, sandals, touristy junk, towels, sarongs, and everything else that can be made really, really cheap. And each shop basically had the same thing. It was structured like a bunch of storage units back in the states (of course a lot more run down and muddy and dirty) that would all just open their doors around 8am until they had made enough sales for the day (which usually wasn't until 9 at night when they stopped haggling people).

When we first started walking around the streets, there was quite a strong odor of "port-a-poddy". It smelled like pee everywhere, and you couldn't get away from it. On some streets they have indoor shops like Polo, D&G, Prada etc. but what we soon learned is that these are just the Chinese made versions of everything, and while prices are still sky high, the quality should be sold for dirt cheap. So we avoided those shops because they had fixed prices, and stuck to the street shops where you could bargain for good prices. It took us a good day to figure out the money though because their currency uses such high numbers. Thankfully I brought a calculator with me, because otherwise who knows how much I would have been paying for things. What they call 10,000 Rupiah is actually like 8.50 in US dollars, so we got good at estimating things by the end of the trip. So after our morning walk Kristen was exhausted and she likes to sleep a lot, so she took a nap and I ventured out a little more on the streets beside our hotel.

I took a walk down by the beach too. There are even people selling stuff on the beach trying to get you to buy stuff, which is extremely annoying. The water was kind of cloudy and luke warm, again making me think of pee. The sand was pretty dark in most locations, not black, but definitely not your pretty white sandy beaches. So I stayed out of the water and went back up to shopping. It started to rain while I was out which I welcomed without an umbrella because I was so hot, even though again, the water felt luke warm like, well yeh you get it by now... The streets were hardly big enough for cars to fit through, but you betcha, cars and vans drove passed pushing people out of the way. But what was really interesting was that when it rained, the shop keepers would come out of their shops with hand made brooms or whatever they could find to sweep the water out of the uneven streets. They didn't want the water in front of their shops because it would keep people away and also invite pesky insects, but if they didn't sweep the water there definitely was no one else to do it. And when it was raining, it just gave the shop keepers more excuses to keep people in their stores longer, pester them more to buy things, and offer them umbrellas to buy at really high prices.

getting the water out of the streets in front of the shops

What I learned while I was avoiding a heavy downpour in one of the shops was that many of these people live right behind where their shops are. You wouldn't think that there was any room for people to live behind these buildings, but there was. One shop that I walked into had a backdoor open and outside you could see a small patch of grass and 3 young boys showering outside in the rain with a little bit of soap with some sort of woman watching over them and herding them back into their home. Their home had to be about the size of my dorm room, which I compare to a jail cell. The level of poverty is absolutely unreal until you are standing there staring it right in the face, but as I toured around over the next couple days I realized I had only seen a small glimpse of the realistic levels of poverty in Bali.

That night we had dinner, actually at the Hard Rock Cafe which was right next to our hotel. I realize this wasn't branching out much, but it was closest to our hotel and we didn't exactly feel completely safe the first night we were there and didn't want to walk far.

Day 2, Touring all day long.
To book a tour you basically pick up any sort of pamphlet and call the cell phone number that they publish and then someone comes to pick you up the next morning. These aren't like group tours either, you get them all to yourself.... which scared the begeebees out of me and Kristen. But, none the less the next morning we got in a van with 2 men we didn't know who said they'd take us on our tour, and off we went. Again, their saving grace was the air conditioned van.

We started off the tour by driving through the city that we were staying in, Kuta and then stopped to see a traditional Balinese dance called the 'Barong' dance. The dance was interesting and was a story about evil spirits entering people's bodies and how to get the evil spirit out etc. At the end of the show Kristen and I got our picture with the traditional Barong that looked like a dragon/lion and we had our first run-in with the Asian tourists that loved us. We had a few different Asian ladies ask Kristen and I if we would be in their pictures with them, I guess because we were American. Very strange, but not we have crazy Asians in a ton of our pictures.

Picture with Barong and Asian Tourists

Next we visited a couple different towns and locations on the tour. We went to a gold/silver works, a fabric making store, a painters house, and also a wood carving shop. The silver store was great and I got some good gifts in there, and the fabric was really interesting because we saw how the large tapestries are handmade and hand painted. The paintings and wood carvings were interesting, but nothing too special.

Then we did some more driving up to the top of the mountain so we could eat lunch and look at the view of the volcano. Let me back up first... to comment on the driving and scenery. My pictures on photobucket will probably paint a better picture, but here is my effort at describing what we saw.

In the cities and towns there are small canal systems throughout the streets the run along side the roads. They are disgusting, and brown as dirt. What we learned later on is that they are so brown because they are filled with trash. There is no garbage disposal system in Bali. It is the 'woman's job' to take the trash outside everyday and burn it and then dump the remains and ashes into the water. I also witnessed many people using this same water to wash their clothes. Then after all of this, the water proceeds to be dumped out to sea. So all water, including the sea, is disgusting, brown, and disease ridden most likely. I'm not sure about bathroom waste being dumped into this water, but it honestly wouldn't surprise me if that was their form of 'plumbing' as well.

Water canals in the city - and the color of the water everywhere

Besides the dirty water, there is heaps of green everywhere. The countryside is full of rice terraces and huge fields of rice. Right now is when they are draining the water off of the rice and it still has about 2-3 more months until it is ready. Even though the whole place is filled with rice, it still does not satisfy the country's need for rice and it is one of their main imports (that is a lot of rice, it's seriously everywhere). The houses that we saw were more like shacks, again reminding me of run down versions of storage sheds in the US. However some were a bit nicer, and they were no where near as bad as the shacks that I witnessed while I was in China. The houses are centered around a temple and each group of families living in the same complex has their own temple, as well as a temple for the entire town that they live in, and well as having specialized temples for farmers and things like that. So a lot of temples, and a lot of praying. Bali is 99% Hindu, and only those that practice Hinduism are allowed inside of the temples. We did see outside every shop though offerings to the gods. There were many religious markers that we saw throughout their culture.

The offerings outside the shop were like a 5 inch square green thing with some food, flowers, and crackers on it usually. We learned that this offering outside of shops and houses was to bless them with money and food and safety. Also outside of all of the houses there is a tall thing to represent a dragon at every house entry way. This is to protect the household and bring safety, food, and other good blessings to the residents. Our tour guide also made many references to religion and their spirituality. I was standing near a cliff looking out to the ocean and taking some pictures and our tour guide rushed up and told me to back away from the edge, that he was worried about me. I kind of laughed it off, but he was very serious and said that the 'bad spirits' had been out all evening and he was concerned for my safety. We also throughout the trip saw groups of people praying outside having their own private services, so it is quite obvious that religion is a huge part of life for this culture and it very much controls their daily actions.

One last comment about the driving - the roads are ridiculous and there are no rules to driving in Bali. It is like a free for all, and quite a few times I gasped and closed my eyes (and that is saying a lot being that I do a fair amount of dodging and fast driving myself back home, this driving made me look like a grandma). Most of the residents have motor bikes because it is more efficient and smarter because the roads are narrow and very crowded. Even if there are 2 lanes in the road, people will be driving 3 cars across or a million motorbikes will be swerving in and out. I don't know why they have mirrors on their cars because they don't use them, they just beep their horn and cut out in front of people. It's absolute madness.


So after a fair bit of driving, we were at the top of the mountain and had a clear view of the volcano on the island and the lake right below it, and I totally forget the name... The view was really nice though and we learned that the last eruption was in 1991 but it would no longer erupt because the temperatures had dropped so much and the temperature of the lake was too cool for the volcano to build up enough heat to erupt. You can still see the large black areas from the lava of the last eruption. The top of the mountain is also the first place we ran into the kid salesmen. They basically came up and tugged on your shirt asking for money and for you to buy little bracelets. As hard as it was to turn them away, well you have to. Because if you give money to one, then you feel like you need to give money to all, and that adds up being that there are herds of them. I was a lot better at dealing with this than Kristen was. She tends to have a pretty soft heart and her eyes pretty much teared up every time we got out of the car and kids were there. She had to stop bringing her wallet and backpack around with her because otherwise she would have given all her money away. Sadly, the kids don't get to keep the money anyway as our tour guide explained. He said that these kids are put up to this by their parents who would rather send their kids to beg than to work themselves. He said that Balinese people tend to highly dislike the beggars because the government gives people with no jobs money, but these people would rather beg than work 5 minutes to make the money themselves. So after this I convinced Kristen if we were going to give money it might as well be to our tour guide that was at least earning the money properly.

The black dark area is the lava from the last eruption in 1991, to the right you can see the edge of the lake at the foot of the volcano.

Ok back to the sights...

The next place that we stopped was the waterfall. When you think waterfall you think green trees and plant life, clear water, a freshwater pool below, and rocks for a picture perfect view... well that doesn't exist in Bali. The water in this waterfall again was brown as dirt and is actually the run off from all of the rice fields. They drain the water here, so this is all the muddy water from the rice fields and when the water is all drained, the waterfall dries up until the next season.

Our next stop was one of my favorites, it was a spice garden. Our guide took us in and showed us all different plants and what their purposes were for like vanilla, tapioca, cocoa, ginseng, and tons of others. He also showed us a mongoose that was in a cage. When we enquired as to why the animal was caged we learned that it was because they feed the mongoose coffee beans, and only coffee beans. Then they collect the coffee bean mongoose poop and that is what is used to make their "highest quality" coffee. So if a+b=c... they drink poopy coffee, and so did I. It was delicious. We also tried ginseng, a hot cocoa and a coffee with ginseng in it and they were all delicious. We also got to try some new fruits, and news alert... I found TWO not just one, but 2 new fruits that I like which brings my total to about 6 all together. But we have been deprived in the states... there is a fruit called snakeskin fruit that is really good and kind of reminded me of apples (hence why I liked it) but it wasn't as juicy. Then there is one called 'hairy fruit' (I'm not completely sure this is the real name, but that is all I know) and it looked like a jelly fish but it was actually really good and sweet. So there, I do like fruit mom, just not what you fed me at home.

So after our spice garden learning expedition we took an hour long drive to get to 'Taneh Lot' Temple which is one of their main temples and it is on the water. It was really cool to see because there were services going on and you could see everyone wading through the water to get to the temple to pray. Of course we couldn't go in, but it was a beautiful sight and very festive because it was some sort of holiday or celebration while we were there. Then we had a nice dinner up on top of a cliff area, overlooking the sea and tried a couple different types of fish (all that made me want to vomit). But it was a nice view and when we were finished our guide found us and we headed in the van for another 30 minutes back to our hotel.


So after an exhausting, but exciting day we went to sleep and decided to shop and see the beach the next day.

Day 3

We definitely slept in after our adventures from the day before. We finally caught up with the friends that stayed in the hotel next door to us, and shopped with them a bit and did an afternoon swim in the pool after we figured out how much crap went into the ocean. I picked up a few goodies like sandals, a dress, some sunglasses, and a t-shirt in my shopping travels and could have bought a ton more because it was so cheap, but thinking realistically I know none of it is going to hold up very long, so I refrained from a total shopping spree :-)

That night we went out to get a taste of the night life. There were 3 boys that were in the group staying next to us and we felt a lot more comfortable going out to the bars with them around so we made our way to a pretty big club called Bounty. They had good drink specials, fun headbands, and lots of people so needless to say we had a good night.

Day 4
We had our 2nd tour this morning and we planned to go snorkeling, take a spin on a glass bottomed boat, and also see turtle island (an animal sanctuary type thing) as well as go to a monkey forest and another temple.

I'll just mention that going on a boat and snorkeling in choppy water is potentially the WORST thing that you could be doing when you have a hangover. But, since it was my own doing I enjoyed every second of my queasy-ness as I fed the fish and saw the turtles, I was not going to lose out on the money I paid haha so lesson learned.


Back to the tour.. we went out snorkeling - again the tour was just Kristen and me. We had our own personal boat and driver and he took us to a spot and gave us some bread to feed the fish. I'm still not entirely sure that the bread was good for all of the fish but they definitely know that snorkelers come with food because as soon as we jumped in the water we had fish surrounding us. The coral was cool, but not extremely bright. It was more depressing than anything because you could see where all the boats were just throwing down their anchors right on top of the coral and killing so much of it. The area is obviously not protected at all, and all I could think was that if they do not do something to save this coral there is going to be nothing to look at, which would then kill the tourism, and their main means of income in this part of Bali.

But after our swim around we went to the turtle sanctuary thing. (The glass bottomed boat was a joke and consisted of 2 panels about the size of a 2x4 board in the bottom of our boat that we couldn't see out of) Our boat stopped and we had to walk about 50 ft. in knee deep water to the island. There were turtles there, but they looked extremely poorly treated if you ask me. Again, the whole place was more depressing than anything. They would pick a turtle up for us to hold then just throw it back into a concrete pit with shallow water. They also had about 20 large turtles that they had in what looked like a swamp and they just threw food at them. I don't know how any of the turtles could survive in the hot and still water. Also on the island they had tons of birds, bats, and snakes. We held a few birds, and a bat (that was really weird feeling) and also had a python around our necks (which I cringed at, and it felt really really disgusting). They had a sea eagle, but again it just looked miserable and had chains around it's feet just so people could take pictures with it. Finally, the worst was the poor monkey they had on the island. It too, was chained up by its foot and had only one tree with no leaves or shade to get under. The poor thing looked miserable. And later I'll talk about the monkey forests that we went to and none of the animals were chained and they all stayed right there. It just seemed like more of torutre for these animals than it was saving them or protecting them, which was quite unfortunate.



So after our water excursion we headed back. On the water we also saw a ton of fisherman and some really old wooden boats that looked like they could have been in pirates of the caribbean, that are actually still functioning boats in Bali, although I have no idea how they weren't sunk already.

But back on land we got in our van with a really nice driver this day, his name was Johnny and he popped in a country music tape of Garth Brooks for us, haha he said he liked the tune but had no idea what he was signing about. So we listened to country music and then headed to the monkey forest. We spent a pretty long time at the monkey forest for the pure fact that Kristen is obsessed with monkeys. I don't know whether she thought that she could talk to them or what, but she would sit and stare at them for ages. We bought some bananas to feed them and they would hop up on your shoulder to get them if you didn't give them to them fast enough. They definitely know that tourists are there to feed them, and if you don't give them the food they steal things like sunglasses and water bottles. So while Kristen enjoyed the monkeys, I enjoyed the nice view of the water (pictures on photobucket) and also some more views of the temples. After that we headed back to the hotel to find something to eat for dinner and to go out for night #2.

The view while Kristen enjoyed the monkeys - this is from one of the temples near the water.



We had dinner at a nice restaurant with huge couch type things outside that you ate dinner on. I felt like I was in a living room eating at a coffee table, but it was a nice night and an enjoyable view. So we did that and then had another fun night out, which I held off on the alcohol being that I still wasn't quite up to par.

Day 5
This morning we had planned to finish up some last minute shopping of things that we wanted and to take a stroll on the beach then pack our bags because we were flying home. Unfortunately, I woke up not feeling good (this time not because of the alcohol). So we did our shopping then just came back and packed our bags. By the time we got to the airport I probably could have passed out and had a pretty high temperature. Somehow, Kristen got me through the airport and we had a lot of time left over so I laid out on the airport chairs despite their lack of comfort. By the time we landed and got an taxi home I felt so sick that I stopped at a pharmacy to get what I could because we had to leave the next morning to go on our second tour. I knew I was going to get tonsilitis or strep throat or some annoying throat problem... So I stocked up on what I could, took a hot shower, and passed out.

So that was Bali, and the next morning begins our tour up the west coast which will be in the next post. Hopefully I'll get it in tonight, but House is a very addicting show and I have 2 episodes loaded on my computer to watch. We'll see how far I get.

Sorry this is so lengthy, but I didn't want to leave anything out!

And if you want to see the pictures I uploaded a ton to my photobucket site.
http://s589.photobucket.com/albums/ss337/amelia_thomas/

Getting into classes, plans for break, and the age of drinking

Over the past few weeks nothing major has really happened besides the beach, school work, a few nights out, and watching House online...

Beach - According to Aussies... March is the end of summer, I beg to differ! It's finally starting to be nice and enjoyable weather here. During the day 80-85 with a slight breeze and cooler at night so you aren't sweating in your sleep. The beach has been gorgeous the past couple weekends and I spent this whole weekend at the beach enjoying the weather. Now that I have my snorkel and mask here I take it with me to our favorite beach, Cottesloe, and snorkel around looking for shells because it is right near a jetty and the beach is usually pretty calm with minimal waves. We've pulled out some pretty cool shells and most likely everyone will be getting some as gifts :-) I also was officially called 'mom' here because I pack my lunch to the beach and come prepared with all sorts of stuff. Thanks mom for making me always be responsible for myself, I never really have to ask anyone for anything. So I plan to keep on making weekend trips to the beach to keep working on my tan even if it is a little cooler, it's enjoyable weather and a beautiful view!

School work. Well, as my roommate from Elon and I discussed... it's hard for us to motivate ourselve to do work here because we have so little and we are used to turning in assignments every week back home so we are in 'school mode' all the time at Elon. Here, well, we are in enjoy life to the fullest mode. Thankfully I don't have any major assignments due until after I return for break so I can get my grades back on the few small assignments that I have turned in which will help me gage where I need to put in more effort. For the most part though my classes are interesting, and while my sociology development class sparks my interest I also enjoy taking field trips for my Australian Studies course.

Most recently we visited Freemantle, which is what I am doing my first paper for that class on. One popular tourist place there is the Roundhouse that was built in 1831. It was used as a gaol and prison until about 20 years ago and there was only ever 1 hanging there. One of the things our teacher pointed out was that the first building built there was the jail, then a church which showed their initial social order. There is also a really cool whaling tunnel that I've now been to twice. It's neat to see these places and how they are still in place today, and also to learn how they were used throughout history. When they stopped the whaling industry there, it was then turned into a bomb shelter during WWII, and now it is a walking path to one of the beaches. Now 'Freo' as it is called here has a very laid back and friendly atmosphere with markets, pubs, breweries, nightlife, fishing, fish and chips, and a pretty interesting history.

This past Saturday we actually went down to Freo (about an hour by bus) for a night out to dinner and then to a popular club in town. It's great because almost all of the restaurants here are BYO wine etc. so we all split some bottles of wine and food and had a good night out. The town itself has a nice atmosphere even at night, and was definitely calmer than many of the nights that we have witnessed around the city of Perth when we go out there, so it was a good change.

As we started talking to some people around us we realized that we all felt old. Mostly because we are all almost 21 years old, and to us 18 year olds are 'young' back in the states. But here in Australia, you can't tell a difference between those that are 18 and those that are 21... because you can drink at 18. In the states there is an obvious divide between 18-20 and 21+, when in all reality those ages are all college students. It really seems like the drinking age being 21 back home has really made a rigid divide between these age groups, and limits the number of friends that you can go out with... and not that going out determines friendships, but what happens on the weekends and who you hang out with can have a huge impact on groups of friends, especially in college. Here there is a lot less emphasis on age and grade level at the university, where as back home there are pretty obvious lines of age and grade level difference. It's great to not have those social constructs and/or social norms of sticking to your own grade, and we've met a wider variety and age of people which I think is largely in part to the fact that the government does not draw a huge line of responsiblity and capabilities between the ages of 20 and 21. But enough about that, it is what it is and maybe someday it will change in the US, but until then... I'm enjoying it here.

Besides that, I've been catching up on the seasons of House online and enjoy House's sarcasm. I've also convinced my guy roommates that 'So you think you can dance' isn't that horrible of a show, and although they don't like to admit it, they enjoy watching it with me on Sunday evenings. (I know this because today, they turned the results show on without me even asking... they must like it.)

And I'm reading books too, I'm waiting for my student advisor to bring me some more so that I don't have to keep buying 30 dollar books here because well... the library is the last place on earth I want to go here, it is possibly the worst, most unorganized, piece of nonsense library I have ever stepped foot into. It's useless.

Last thing is I'm in search of a new ipod since mine decided to stop working on me at the gym one day... who said Apple was reliable?!

Thursday I leave for 2 weeks - 1 to Bali and 1 up the west coast, so I'm sure I'll have some more exciting adventures and news upon returning...

Love and miss everyone back home!!

Cooking is going to have to happen.

So another week has come and gone...

Not too much to show for it either, except from the clubs and bars that we seemed to gravitate toward last week. Basically if you want to fit in with the Australians, better yet, if you want to locate the Aussies you have to go to the bar. Young and old, they will undoubtedly be there on any given day of the week, particularly Sundays. So this week, we (most of us girls from school) made an attempt to meet some Aussies and go out like they do. Fortunately for my wallet, liver, and head, I was sick from weird food all week and didn't drink a ton (one of the best decisions I've made here yet).

So since it is such a part of the culture here, I'll give my best attempt at describing what happens weekly by night since last week I described my days.

Starting with Monday night... The bars are full for dinner because there are a lot of good food specials etc. in town, but for me this is grocery shopping and gym night. The only bad part is the grocery store closes at 6, and taking groceries on the bus around 5:30 (because I can't seem to pull myself out of bed to go before my class that starts at 1pm... yeh Mom I know this doesn't work at home...) is not the easiest on a crowded and smelly bus. But I've come to accept it and so I do that then head to the gym and come back by 9-ish to catch up on some work or reading and hang out with roommates if they are around.

Tuesday night... Same scene with the bars, but for me it's the gym and a meeting with my student advisor and actually cooking a real dinner (which is ending up to be more of a problem than anything...)

Wednesday night... Standard night for all college kids to go out, no matter sober or not. There is a bar on campus that throws a lot of different themed party as well as a small bar right off campus that does kareoke every Wednesday night. The Elvis impersonator with his gold sparkly vest that DJ's and announces the kareoke on stage is one of the most memorable parts of every Wednesday. So this has come to be known as "Waterford Wednesdays" since the bar is at the Waterford shopping plaza. This usually means hanging out with friends and having some drinks outside (since it's too hot inside being we have no AC and it still hasn't cooled off from the day's heat) and then walking to the bar around 9. Another great part of this all is that it closes at midnight... meaning I don't have to feel bad for going to bed early since I'm always the tired one! And, there is a bus stop right outside the bar that takes me right back to my room :-)

Thursday night... not too big of a night here, so we try to watch a movie or cook out on the grills at one of our housing areas etc. Once a month we've decided to do a dinner out in the city, most likely on Thursdays since we don't have class the next day.

Then comes the weekend... and basically Australians start drinking when they get off work Friday and don't stop till they pass out Sunday night. This weekend we went to BBQ's, a pool party, out to dance in the city, and to a brewery on Sunday (all of which during I felt sick from the chicken nuggets I thought were safe to eat...wrong). Needless to say after the weekend, we've decided we just can't hang with the Aussies and are all exhausted. So this week it is St. Patricks Day celebrations and that is it.

So there is plenty to do at night here, but it's not always up my alley of what I want to do every night. The other lesson learned last week was the fact that healthy fresh food is universal... and fried food is not great if you aren't used to it in another country. So I made the mistake of eating chicken nuggets that I thought would be a standard meal. Well that was a mistake. Whatever they fried or breaded the chicken in definitely did not agree with me and has left me with an upset stomach for a while now, which is most likely because I ate like 4 meals of the nuggets. So now my challenge is cooking.

It's no hidden truth that I am a picky eater, so finding the ingredients for the foods that I like has been a little troubling. And I can't keep eating out because that costs an arm and a leg. So I've resorted to the Rachael Ray website to find some recipes. My next problem is that the only meat I ever see in the grocery store is chicken and hamburger meat (which I just found today). I believe I'm going to have to drag myself out of the bed in the morning because it looks like there is room for it on the shelf, there is just nothing there. For now I've located all the ingredients to make Chicken DiVan, so hopefully that will last me a few days. So if anyone has any easy recipes that have pretty simple ingredients, well I'd love it if you could share them!

Just some other random facts that I recognize as the days go on...

They have some fastfood places here such as:
Dominoes, Subway, KFC, McDonalds (which they call Macky's), and their version on Burger King which is called Hungry Jacks over here

Mullets are by far the most popular hair style still...

Most Americans get obsessed with these chocolates called "Tim-Tams" but they are almost like a kit-kat bar with more wafer and not so much milk chocolate. My friend eats a pack a day, and thank goodness I don't like them that much because they aren't exactly on the healthy food list.

There is a great hostility from the Australians held against the Asian people that are swarming here in huge masses. In one specific scenario a older man got on the bus and there was not a lot of room so the bus driver yelled back, "Please move down the isle" like they normally do. The old man looked at the bus driver and said, "They aren't going to do it cuz they can't understand yeh... they can't understand and they don't even belong here." So in a huff he finally found a seat near the front of the bus and every Asian just stared at him being that almost all of them understand and speak English perfectly well...

The Indigenous people of Australia have been repressed, much like the Native Americans, but here they still act out in many ways of violence toward everyone else. Teenage kids and 'aboriginees' from the area walk on to campus, especially late at night, and attack students (typically Asians) and anyone in the area for no good reason. Recently there were a few attacks in a different housing area where an Australian guy was almost beat up with golf clubs by a group of aboriginees if it weren't for his running into the laundry room. So there is a lot of violence and hostility still among the different communities.

No grape jelly, but I did find Ketchup

When you go out to a restaurant and you want a side of sauce for anything, you have to pay at least 2 dollars for it.

The fries are called chips here and chips are called crisps

The fries here, if served with anything, come with aioli sauce... basically garlic mayo. We thought it was great until we realized we were eating gobs of mayo on our fries, so then we cut back.

You have to pay 1 dollar to use a shopping cart... so we carry baskets in the grocery store instead.

You have to pay for internet usage by the megabyte... that is annoying.

If you give the peace sign, or actually make a V in sign language and motion with your hand up-wards it is a very offensive hand gesture here

Boxed wine is called "Goon"



I know there are a ton more things, but none are coming to mind right now. So I'll just keep adding as I think of them. This week I'm making travel plans for our break which is the week before and the week after Easter and hopefully going to the pool Wednesday for some laps and time in the sun.