After the ice cream bar mishap, my case of food poisoning seemed to take a turn for the better! In my experience it's usually only a 24 hour thing that leaves you feeling tired but very much functional the next day. Which was good because I had full exciting day of exploring the ancient temples of Prambanan. The temple complex was built between the 8th and 10th century, by the Hindu rulers. The temples were only recently "rediscovered" and much of them are still swallowed by the jungle. However, when you talk to the locals here, they'll tell you that the temples were never really lost, only that they simply had no purpose in what is now a muslim state. That is until white people decided they were culturally significant and important causing a small boom of tourism. These temples still do not attract the same level of that of Angkor Watt in Cambodia, but they are supposed to be equally as impressive.
Well 5 am hit and so did the food poisoning, back with advengence, around 7 I was able to make it down to the lobby to send an email to the woman who booked the tour for me that I wouldn't be able to make the 8 am departure. I toyed with the idea that I should see if a later departure time was avaible, but in the end it seemed best not to push things. I had my room at Sati Hitel until noon, then I had to move back to ViaVia where my original booking was. By 8 am the Sari hotel erupted with construction workers repairing god knows what. The noise of saws, hammers and drills filled the air as I laid in a ball on the bathroom floor, oddly comforted by the noise which reminded me of my family's never ending construction projects. I took some medicein and prayed that it would work.
At 11 I started to slowly gather up my things and by noon I was down in the lobby checking out. I walked the block and a half to VaiVai where as I filled out the paperwork for staying there I felt the familiar stomach rumble and had to excuse myself. Doubled the dosage of the meds.
By 5pm I had finished one book and I was feeling safe enough to leave my room. I went to see the tour people to confirm my trip for tomorrow and get reimbursed for the day. Not wanting to push my luck I picked up some juice figuring it had more to it than water. And retired to my room. So much for day one of the trip.
Thursday, June 19, 2014
Friday, June 6, 2014
Indonesia: They say it's all in the getting there...
Day one, Manila to Yogjakarta, Java
There were several disasterous events that took place in this travel. Granted there was no plane crash, I didn't end up in the hospital and I made away with most of my stuff. I spent the precious night in Manila in anticipation for my early morning departure. Getting there proved interesting with several accidents on the highway which made my 2 hour express journey into a 6 hour one. But I arrived in Manila in time to get a late dinner At my favourite Thai restaurant, unfortunately I wasn't able to get to cotton on in time to pick up some other long skirts for the trip. At 2 am I woke up with food poisoning. I spent the next 2 and a half hours in the bathroom cursing pad Thai and wondering why my body still felt the need to throw up when we both knew there was nothing left in there. At 4:30 am I made my way down to check out and get to the airport still feeling rough. Half way to the airport it started to rain, and then it started to pour. by the time i got out of my taxi and ran to the airport door I was pretty soaked. You have to wait outside the door to the airport while security checks your ticket. This takes some time because of ineffiecancy and mass confusion that follows everywhere in the Philippines. So I'm in line outside the airport doors getting rained on and feeling awful. At some point when i'm one person away from the guard the familiar retching feeling hits me and i through up in a potted fern. the guard looks at me with disgust but amazingly still lets me in. I make it trough check in and onto the pal e with out further incident. We have to walk out onto the tarmac to get to the plane, in the pouring rain. Because of this my nice normal tank top slowly begins to stretch out slowly into what is far more bar appropriate and less early morning flight. Yet I make it onto the flight starting to feel a better. However there's nothing like feeling nauseous at 30000 ft. The plane was freezing, I was relieved when I overheard several other people asking the flights attendant if there was anyway that the heat could be turned up. Apparently it couldn't. I was glad I had brought a small blanket I had stolen from my last air Canada flight. We landed in Kuala Lumpur where I need to get my luggage, go through customs, get back in the airport and check into my next flight. Air Asia really knows how to make things easy...
I was tired as I made my way through the maze of the airport. Eventually I made it to the departure hall, found one of he super annoying self scan ticket despensers and try to scan the print out of my ticket, nothing happened. I tried again, and then another machine to no avail. Then I looked at the departure screen my 1:15 flight to yogarkta had been delayed, and I would not be able to check on for another 2 hours.
I was stuck in departures for about 2 hours with not much to do, no where to sit and I was starting to get hungry, surprisingly the problem with this was I was in an airport that really only took cash with no Malaysian money. I wondered for a very long time until I found a Starbucks, back with exhausted looking westerners. They took card, but but you had to buy 25r worth of items, which ment I now have baked good snacks for the next couple of days. Their apricot chicken wrap is really very good. I eventually was able to check in, get rid of my bag, make my way through airport security, find out that my flight was delayed again, and discover I still had food poisoning. I realize while looking in the mirror in the ladies room that I forgot to switch out my shirt into a new one, so now I'm in the airport, in a Muslim country, boobs on display like its Mardi Gras.
-Good job Dana, way to be a culturally sensitive traveller.
Oh we'll, I'll switch it out at the next airport.
The next airport can only be discribed as a shit show, one room, random desks set up places with people collecting papers, checking passports. Small immigration documents being shoved at you that need to be filled out, none of which was in English. So I stood in these crowds (there were no lines) trying to guess what the papers wanted me to fill out based on the size of the boxes and my knowledge of previous immigration forms. Once past th last desk where the officer took my final piece of paper ( he didn't speak English so how was he to know if it was filled out right) was a man throwing all our luggage into. Corner as people scrambled to collect their belongings before the next incoming suitcase or box came hurling towards the pile. I grabbed my suitcase surveyed my surroundings, it was to chaotic and there was a lack of a washroom to be able to change my shirt. I stood out in sharp contrast to all the heavily covered, hajabbed women around me.
Past the last security point stood a small bank/ money changer. I exchange my bills and was now fully prepared to get a taxi and head to my hotel for the evening. In the taxi is when I discovered that I had been conned, robbed, tricked(?) by the money changer. Not knowing the exchange rate off by heart yet and the paper where I had written it was now at the bottom of my purse, I simply trusted the bank, after all in the past they had always been reliable. Yet I had been shorted almost 1 million rupees, about $75. I was pissed, but what was one to do. I got to my hotel, only to discover it was actually only the restaurant and that the hotel was about another block and a half down the road. Dodging motorbikes and stray animals I made my way there down some ill lite alley. Which is when the next problem occurred. Despite our emails back and forth there had been some mistake in the books and they didn't have me arriving until the 7th, there was no room for me that night. The woman called several hotels in the area and eventually found me a place too stay for the night down the road. Upon arriving there it was clear that this was not a place that tourists normally stay. Questioning eyes of the other hotel guests followed me as I was lead to my room. The bed was small. The door lock was questionable, the bathroom was dirty and there was no toilet paper. But there was hot water. I dropped my bags off and then went down the street which was littered with hotels and guesthouse a to see if there was something I liked better. Unfortunately everything was full. It was the start of high season and apparently last minute Check ins don't happen here.
I bought some water, toilet paper and a pomegranate dark chocolate ice cream, which tasted awesome the first time. In retrospect it probably wasn't a great idea. Had a shower which could only be very hot or very cold, there was no combining the two temperatures. By 9 pm I was exhausted and tried to go to sleep, instead I spent several more hours listen to the people in the next room's questionable taste in music. Who still thinks Lincoln Park is a good idea?
There were several disasterous events that took place in this travel. Granted there was no plane crash, I didn't end up in the hospital and I made away with most of my stuff. I spent the precious night in Manila in anticipation for my early morning departure. Getting there proved interesting with several accidents on the highway which made my 2 hour express journey into a 6 hour one. But I arrived in Manila in time to get a late dinner At my favourite Thai restaurant, unfortunately I wasn't able to get to cotton on in time to pick up some other long skirts for the trip. At 2 am I woke up with food poisoning. I spent the next 2 and a half hours in the bathroom cursing pad Thai and wondering why my body still felt the need to throw up when we both knew there was nothing left in there. At 4:30 am I made my way down to check out and get to the airport still feeling rough. Half way to the airport it started to rain, and then it started to pour. by the time i got out of my taxi and ran to the airport door I was pretty soaked. You have to wait outside the door to the airport while security checks your ticket. This takes some time because of ineffiecancy and mass confusion that follows everywhere in the Philippines. So I'm in line outside the airport doors getting rained on and feeling awful. At some point when i'm one person away from the guard the familiar retching feeling hits me and i through up in a potted fern. the guard looks at me with disgust but amazingly still lets me in. I make it trough check in and onto the pal e with out further incident. We have to walk out onto the tarmac to get to the plane, in the pouring rain. Because of this my nice normal tank top slowly begins to stretch out slowly into what is far more bar appropriate and less early morning flight. Yet I make it onto the flight starting to feel a better. However there's nothing like feeling nauseous at 30000 ft. The plane was freezing, I was relieved when I overheard several other people asking the flights attendant if there was anyway that the heat could be turned up. Apparently it couldn't. I was glad I had brought a small blanket I had stolen from my last air Canada flight. We landed in Kuala Lumpur where I need to get my luggage, go through customs, get back in the airport and check into my next flight. Air Asia really knows how to make things easy...
I was tired as I made my way through the maze of the airport. Eventually I made it to the departure hall, found one of he super annoying self scan ticket despensers and try to scan the print out of my ticket, nothing happened. I tried again, and then another machine to no avail. Then I looked at the departure screen my 1:15 flight to yogarkta had been delayed, and I would not be able to check on for another 2 hours.
I was stuck in departures for about 2 hours with not much to do, no where to sit and I was starting to get hungry, surprisingly the problem with this was I was in an airport that really only took cash with no Malaysian money. I wondered for a very long time until I found a Starbucks, back with exhausted looking westerners. They took card, but but you had to buy 25r worth of items, which ment I now have baked good snacks for the next couple of days. Their apricot chicken wrap is really very good. I eventually was able to check in, get rid of my bag, make my way through airport security, find out that my flight was delayed again, and discover I still had food poisoning. I realize while looking in the mirror in the ladies room that I forgot to switch out my shirt into a new one, so now I'm in the airport, in a Muslim country, boobs on display like its Mardi Gras.
-Good job Dana, way to be a culturally sensitive traveller.
Oh we'll, I'll switch it out at the next airport.
The next airport can only be discribed as a shit show, one room, random desks set up places with people collecting papers, checking passports. Small immigration documents being shoved at you that need to be filled out, none of which was in English. So I stood in these crowds (there were no lines) trying to guess what the papers wanted me to fill out based on the size of the boxes and my knowledge of previous immigration forms. Once past th last desk where the officer took my final piece of paper ( he didn't speak English so how was he to know if it was filled out right) was a man throwing all our luggage into. Corner as people scrambled to collect their belongings before the next incoming suitcase or box came hurling towards the pile. I grabbed my suitcase surveyed my surroundings, it was to chaotic and there was a lack of a washroom to be able to change my shirt. I stood out in sharp contrast to all the heavily covered, hajabbed women around me.
Past the last security point stood a small bank/ money changer. I exchange my bills and was now fully prepared to get a taxi and head to my hotel for the evening. In the taxi is when I discovered that I had been conned, robbed, tricked(?) by the money changer. Not knowing the exchange rate off by heart yet and the paper where I had written it was now at the bottom of my purse, I simply trusted the bank, after all in the past they had always been reliable. Yet I had been shorted almost 1 million rupees, about $75. I was pissed, but what was one to do. I got to my hotel, only to discover it was actually only the restaurant and that the hotel was about another block and a half down the road. Dodging motorbikes and stray animals I made my way there down some ill lite alley. Which is when the next problem occurred. Despite our emails back and forth there had been some mistake in the books and they didn't have me arriving until the 7th, there was no room for me that night. The woman called several hotels in the area and eventually found me a place too stay for the night down the road. Upon arriving there it was clear that this was not a place that tourists normally stay. Questioning eyes of the other hotel guests followed me as I was lead to my room. The bed was small. The door lock was questionable, the bathroom was dirty and there was no toilet paper. But there was hot water. I dropped my bags off and then went down the street which was littered with hotels and guesthouse a to see if there was something I liked better. Unfortunately everything was full. It was the start of high season and apparently last minute Check ins don't happen here.
I bought some water, toilet paper and a pomegranate dark chocolate ice cream, which tasted awesome the first time. In retrospect it probably wasn't a great idea. Had a shower which could only be very hot or very cold, there was no combining the two temperatures. By 9 pm I was exhausted and tried to go to sleep, instead I spent several more hours listen to the people in the next room's questionable taste in music. Who still thinks Lincoln Park is a good idea?
Monday, June 2, 2014
Getting Ready to Leave
Today the packers came to my house to ship my stuff to Kuwait. 6 large boxes later my house seems empty. Now I just have to sell off the rest and stuff the remaining into 3 suitcases.
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