September 2006 Archives
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September 26, 2006
Malaysia - In Transit
So, here I am sitting on a Thai airways flight. It started with a "bump" on the ground that got everyone a bit rattled. The captain said something about, "oops, my bad" but I think he meant that they were still connected and he had to full hit the brakes. Well, the flight is smooth and although we just took of, we're landing in about 30 minutes. (Correction: We have about 90 minutes left... although it's a mostly northward flight, we change time zones going from Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok.)
14 hours earlier
We landed from a long flight out of Cape Town via Jo'berg. The first stretch was about 2 hours and the second stretch was about 8 or so hours. We also had about 1.5 hours in the plane at the Jo'berg airport. We both took some sleeping aids to try to sleep on the flight. That worked OK for me and not quite so OK for Laurie.
So, by the time we got in to KLIA (Kuala Lumpur International Airport) we were exhausted. It was about 0630 local time. Luckily, we spotted signts to an internal hotel within the wing of the airport we were in. Although not cheap, they had reasonable rates starting with 6 hours of time. We checked in, showered, watched some National Geographic channel (one of the few available, discovered the free KLIA WiFi was in range, checked email, and crashed with the TV set to 4.5 hours.
4.5 hours later
Having gotten some much needed rest we decided to check-out of the hotel and go in search of food. After some meandering, hitting up the ATM (we couldn't change in our spare Kenya Shillings that I still have in my wallet), and scouting out the options we decided on a noodle place. One large, shared bowl of noodles and two teas later we were ready to go shopping (have you seen a large airport without a mall lately?).
We found some fun stuff as well as some stamps for our postcards that we didn't have time to mail while still in South Africa. Prices were not too bad, considering we were in the secure section of the airport and the international terminals. That said, things like soda were about twice what they were in the SA airports, so it's all relative.
I found the Malaysia version of the T3 gadget magazine for just over US $2. It's normally about $9 at a borders, so that was nice. Laurie found a great shirt that looks absolutely wonderful on her. It's a great color of green in an asian style.
It was a while before we were able to check-in to our flight (one that our luggage was checked through to). That made me a bit nervous (come back 3 hours before ... now come back 2 hours before, etc.) but all was well. Who knows about our luggage; it could be anywhere still. ;)
Present
Now, I'm going to run off to other, older posts and see what I can prepare for when we get a net connection again. I've been a bit behind on the writing so I'm trying to write current stuff before catch-up stuff, but I need time for both. This should mean I'll be able to get up some of the SA stuff now as I think I've posted most of the Kenya stuff that I've written.
I still have some Egpyt and Kenya stuff to write, but I think doing the most recent stuff will result in overall better posts... who knows, though. Besides, it's all relative and it's not like anyones reads these. :)
Well, food time on the plane now...
September 22, 2006
South Africa - Phantom Forest and Shark Diving
After having a full rest day at Phantom Forest in Knysna, South Africa, we were ready to go out and about and do stuff again. This was after an absolutely wonderful dinner and breakfast. The dinner food was a traditional full course meal with bread, soup, starter, sorbet, main course, cheese taster, and (finally!) dessert. The starter and main course usually consisted of some sort of meat. In our case, we usually chose local game when possible. The cooking style was "normal" English -- but elegant. The breakfasts were equally good with toasts, muffins, eggs, sausage, bacon, and other stuff.
Our first day out was to go out to Tsitsikamma park where we could take a short walk (about 1km) out to a suspension foot bridge at Storms River mouth. This was a great place, with lots of neat costal areas and nice views of the river and cliffs.
This took all day and we returned after dinner had started.
Sitting at Phantom Forest
We were supposed to be in Thailand now. Well, actually, we would have been in the air to Thailand now. But the king and the commander in chief of the military decided they didn't like the billionaire prime minister anymore, so the military booted him while he was in New York for the UN gathering.
Even though there was virtually no violence, a number of services closed down including the banks and ATM system. This would mean possible trouble and delays for us and since we were only going to be there a few days we didn't really have the time to mess around with such things. Not only that, but with martial law and the streets full of tanks, it wouldn't really be an indicative time to go there. So, we decided to stay longer in South Africa.
We got a great three-night package at Phantom Forest. We were lucky to get one because this is a three-day weekend for the country. Laurie had stayed here before, so we knew it would be nice. The rooms aren't really rooms; they are small cabins. And by small, I mean large enough to live in for a short period. There is a large bathroom with nice, two-person bath and large glass windows. A living area with some nice chairs and windows and a bedroom with a nice, soft bed. The deck has a fridge and hot water pot.
The weather here is wonderful, even though it's basically a rain forest. The drive down was a bit long for me given everything we've been doing. Laurie had to drive a little. She ended up having a couple of long waits for road construction, too. She has much more practice with driving on the "other side" of the road than me, so I've been doing much of the driving here and in Kenya.
I've been resting for a few hours. Travel is always so much more tiring than expecte. This extra time in South Africa is nice we get to relax and the package comes with massages. Laurie is now resting. She had gone through a bunch of the pictures we've taken.
I'm now trying to sort through various notes and such to get some blog posts up. We've been so disconnected that even writing anything down for a blog post has been difficult. There has been power everywhere, but finding the time and energy just hasn't happened. That means that the last few posts or so were (or will be -- time is strange when talking and past things that haven't happened yet) summaries and afterthoughts of things that have already come to pass.
This lodge (eco reserve) has wifi in the lounge. It's slow (only around 80kbps) but works just fine. That's been great for checking in on things a little more frequently. We also had WiFi at our previous location (a Sheraton of sorts) which allowed us to check in on bills since we didn't have any sort of connection while in Kenya.
Things like work are starting to enter my thoughts a bit more since we only have just over a week left of our trip. Although I have a rest day before returning to work, I imagine it'll be fairly busy with unpacking and sorting through things.
We've been trying to send out post cards regularly, but it's been difficult. In Kenya, we only knew how many stamps to put on a normal sized post card and almost every card we got was a large size. If you haven't received a card from us (and expected to) we apologize -- finding posts and being ready for them has been a bit more difficult than expected in the previous countries.
Well, I better get back to the past posts before that doesn't happen, once again. Until before now... ;)
September 19, 2006
South Africa - My First Impressions and Wine Tasting
Since Laurie had already been to South Africa, this post is mostly just my own observations (not the other other posts weren't, but some notes from Laurie get in because of how we're doing this).
We landed in the late evening, got our car, and drove the long distance to our hotel (maybe 600 meters). The hotel had a very small room, inclusive breakfast, and a soda machine (5 rands for a soda or 6 rands for a beer). However, it was very functional and served it's purpose well -- we got to roll off the plane and in to the hotel.
The car is amusing. It's a brand new VW Chico 1.4. It has four doors and a hatchback trunk that is large enough to hold our big bag. For amenities it has a heater, a clock, and a trunk cover. It has a very efficient use of space, especially between the pedals... you can press all three at once with a single foot without even turning your foot sideways as both Laurie and I discovered. (Of course, at night it was dark and I was wearing boots and as I learned the next morning a mat was also helping press the accelerator when the brake was pressed.)
Yeah, that's about it. There is no radio, no air bags, no power steering, vritually no storage pockets, and really not much of anything. It doesn't even have fuel injectors. Yes, it has a nice choke control for the carbuerator -- something I missed when trying to start it late at night. It also has a gear lock -- a switch you can flip when in reverse that requires a key to unlock the gears for shifting or driving again.
The next day we went out to Stellenbosch area to do some wine tasting. We didn't get to as many of the wineries as we had hoped, but we did have a good time doing the wine tasting. Lunch was at a fun place that had lots of well fed birds (mostly just Peking and Mallard ducks, but some other birds you don't see in the states). It also had a place for some cheetahs and bird of prey.
After that, we had another night at the airport hotel. The breakfasts there were actually not bad at all. It was just your ordinary continental breakfast affair, but with eggs and some meats, should you want them. We then drove off towards Hermanus and our Arrabella Cape Hotel and Spa.
This drive took us passed the African Penguins. We stopped there for a little while. Luckily, we got there early before other people and had a pretty quiet time to film and take pictures. The park rules did not include not feeding the penguins, which was curious. So, when kneeling down next to the railing, some would come right up to it. I actually got pecked on the sole of my shoe by one! They were so cute, though. (And no, we didn't feed them anything... fingers included.)
The coastal drive was quite nice. I had observed that we were at about the same latitude as California. The weather was very similar to home weather, too (although it's just getting to be spring now rather than fall). I wasn't expecting such neat mountain ranges. I actually really like them a lot.
It's also very cool to almost always be seeing whales and dolphins off the coast. Sure, we can see them off our own coast in Santa Cruz, but it's not nearly as frequent of an occurrance without going out on a boat. Besides, you won't see dassies (aka rock hydrax) all over, either.
Arriving at the Arrabella, we found lots of staff although not as nice as other places we had been. It is a golfing community and well know around the area so we suspect they're just a little on the "uppity" side and we come in wearing backpacks and want to carry our own stuff. ;) (No offense to anyone there; the food and service was great.)
Well, more about this time in the next post... Laurie wants the laptop now. ;)
September 10, 2006
Kenya - The Fig Tree and Drive to Amboseli
Felt very commercial after MBC. The food was very western; meat and potatoes. Food seemed to be processed and pre-prepared; lots of preservatives. Didn't feel as welcome. We were the only people in the car park.
Havings drinks up in the deck in the fig tree itself was quite nice. Just have to watch for the baboons and vervet monkeys. Maasai would walk around and throw stuff at them yet there was a large bird feeder that seemed to feed the primates, as well.
Herds of people were ushered into safari vehices everyday. Yet we completely self-drove at fig tree (we left Kiswe at MBC, where he normally stayed) and saw more animals than were reported in the log books.
Our first navigational experience was with just Willem, Laurie, and Shane. Monika was not feeling well enough to go out with us. We had no trouble finding everything we wanted to find on our own. We did use the GPS with a rought map to try to find things. Our drive took us out to some very nice river viewings along the Mara River.
Kept seeing maneless male lions -- often only identified after seeing them in pictures. Most of them did look fairly young, but they were also very large.
The roads inside Masai Mara were much better than the roads to and from Narok. That said, the river crossings definitely required a 4x4.
Pooled our pack lunch materials on the way back from MM to Amboseli. We handed these out to kids, who were very thankful -- in some cases, the parents that may have been nearby were, too.
Nearly every kid we passed was trying to solicit. On one occasion, there was a young boy who wasn't soliciting but was by himself... we handed him a couple of apples -- he was completely ecstatic and didn't know what to do or say. (He also then had his hands full trying to scramble back up the side of the road).
Drove around Narok while Monika and Willem dealt with getting some cash. Quite interesting... the roads were unmaintained and filthy, but life was going on as normal. We definitely got looks -- mostly because we were the only white people in sight.
Tried to take a short cut to skip Nairobi -- ended up next to some military installation. Was told we could take the dirt road around. That led us out a ways where we were told it wouldn't go through but the road we were on would come out at a town still north of Nairobi. This road turned out to be a road for a cement company. Very rough for our 4x4 vehicle and our rattle innards. We got out of the area fine. Considering we saved about 10 km of driving and the roads weren't really that much slower than the main ones, we probably didn't really lose much time at all.
When driving down the first section of the short cut, the road was pretty good. But there was a part that was washed out. We took the route around that looked most traveled. At one point, though, the car got stuck -- the dust was too slippery for it in 2 wheel mode. Willem got out to lock the front wheels -- and slipped, twisting his ankle, while walking on the same dust! Once in full 4 wheel mode, the car moved out fine -- but it was clearly a very slipper climb out of the dust river.
Dust, dust, dust! The closer we got the amboseli the dustier everything got. It was coming in from every little spot it could.
I apologize for the note-like feeling to this post. That's exactly what it is, but I wanted to get thoughts down and out quickly so I just took our notes and plopped them in.
September 7, 2006
Kenya - First Thoughts and Mara Bush Camp
I think both Laurie and I were a bit dissapointed with Egypt. We didn't know what to expect with Kenya after that. We certainly didn't have any fun leaving Egypt, either, what with the crazy airport stuff and all.
We arrived at the airport without any trouble. However, the car was not ready. Although the Avis office was a 24 hour office, some people weren't in that needed to be in. We waited around in the cafe (called Karibu Cafe -- meaning "Welcome Cafe" in English).
Ultimately, our friends arrived from the UK while we were waiting. We all then waited around. We had started talking with another traveler from Iceland. That was quite interesting. We've had Iceland on our short list for a while now. In fact, it was even considered as a stopping over place in Europe before heading in to Africa on this trip.
Finally the car arrived. It was a 7 seater Toyota Land Cruiser outfitted for safari. It had two spare wheels on the rear, a support cage for climbing around on top of the car, 7 seats with maybe 2-3 working seat belts, and two full fuel tanks. The rear had room for all of our luggage, but could only be accessed through the back. Right behind the rear seats was a metal caging that prevented accessing the rear luggage compartment.
The roof had three opening doors. The center one was removable and could be stowed in the rear while the other two could be clamped down. This allowed for all three rows of seats to be able to stand up and look out. You could even climb out and sit (or even stand) on top of the vehicle. We took advantage of this frequently. When I wasn't driving, I would stand in the rear the whole time (this led to a sunburned hand, but was worth not getting car sick).
Willem did the initial driving since they were used to right hand drive on the left side of the road. Heading out of Nairobi, the roads were completely smogged over with diesel fumes. This was getting us a bit ill.
Once out of Nairobi, we had some good roads for a while that deteriorated in to terrible roads. I was sitting up front for this whole leg of the journey, but still had a hard time. The paved roads were rough and unmaintained and the dirt roads, although better on the tires, were still pretty bad.
Getting out to Mara Bush Camp did take longer than expected, given the distance, but we ultimately go to Masai Mara National Reserve without issues. We had to call and meet someone at the airstrip to help us find Mara Bush Camp since it was well hidden in the bush near a river.
I had the sat phone on the whole time without charging it. I then learned that the wall charger wasn't going to work so I had a dead battery on my hands. Luckily, the car charger did ultimately work and Mobal had provided two fully charger batteries (a standard and an extended -- the standard was the dead one). We did have to use the phone on our way out because we could dial from it.
To our surprise, though, there was GSM coverage in most of the area. Our friends were able to roam on to it, too. On the coverage maps I had looked at, there was no coverage (or roaming) in most of the areas we were going to be that were outside of Nairobi or off the main Nairobi-Mombasa road.
We were greeted by the entire staff (well, lots of people anyway) of Mara Bush Camp when we did finally arrive. The camp itself was a temporary affair with true tents. My first impression was that this would be a problem for us because of showering and charging. However, the tents had full bathrooms with showers and flush toilets.
We did have serious reservations about the environmental impact of this, though, because the shower water went directly in to the ground and who knows where the sewage went, but we were very close to the river.
The showers were handled by asking one of the staff members to fill some reservoire with hot water. Although we were conservative with the amount of water we used, we never did run out of hot water. And had we, they were ready to fill it with more hot water. This was nicer than expected.
The toilet was filled from a water tank only a few feet about the toilet's own water tank. This meant filling was slow and a full flush would only happen maybe every 4-6 hours. Given some of our "issues" this was a slight problem.
Bugs were not an issue here. First off, they said there was no concern of mosquitos because there weren't any. Well, we never saw any, which was rather odd. There were some other bugs, but nothing that bugged us (har har). They did provide bug screens for the bed and bug spray for other areas, but we never had to use it. We're not sure if there just weren't many bugs there (right next to a river) or if they were putting stuff in the nearby water to kill off things. It is possible there just weren't any because we were up at around 5300 feet altitude.
They provided flashlights (aka "torches" as non-Americans call them) as well as people to help light the way between the lounge and eating tent and the bed tents. In addition to this, there was 24-hour Maasai warrior guards. We didn't see as many animals here as we did at other camps. This was odd since it was the most remote and natural camp.
The staff was really friendly -- sometimes to the point of folly. ;) Example: Willem wants a beer. The fridge was locked but the key was away with someone. Well, it was the first time we asked. Willem then said he didn't need the beer. They then said that the key had been lost. Willem still insisted he didn't need to the beer right then. Well, they broke open the fridge... it didn't seem to close as well after that. Silly.
The food was fantastic at Mara Bush. Cooked every night, with plenty of reuse of materials. e.g what was bacon one morning became black forest ham salad in the afternoon and a cold starter that night. The packed breakfasts were very good and in nice heat-retaining containers. The two we got consisted of bacon, sausage, hard-boiled eggs (a common food in Kenya, as we would learn), juice, coffee, tea, yoghurt, and various breads. There was always plenty for us and Kiswe, too.
Within the main tent they had a power strip for charging phones or camera batteries off of. This was powered via a diesel generator in the mess tent (which we never saw the inside of).
For light at night in the tents, each tent had a bag with a battery inside and mutiple LED lights. These were charged via solar during the day. This provided plenty of light with little worry of running the battery dry. No inverter was supplied for this, but the batteries weren't all that big anyway.
Kiswe, our Maasai guide for our drives, spoke very little English but was very helpful in finding animals for us and navigating the amazing patchwork of roads and tracks around the Masai Mara.
Overall, we had two nights at Mara Bush Camp, which allowed for a full day of game drive as well as a half day before we headed off to Fig Tree, which was one of the most well marked camps since we'd seen multiple signs on our drive in to Mara Bush Camp.
It was nice to head over to the lounge, have a drink of Tusker or Amarula with our friends, visit, and check out the books provided. This was a nice camp with a rough luxury to it. Our goal had been to get instant, deep immersion -- and it worked.
September 5, 2006
Long Flight, New Location
After 3 flights, and moving forward in the time zones, we're now sitting in a hotel waiting on room service having napped until midnight. The view is of the great pyramids; it's a lit view.
Going through customs was quite easy. We just had to buy some stamps to stick in our passports -- that was 30$ USD each. Other than the line, it took barely a minute and no questions were asked.
After that, we were bombarded by folks asking where we wanted to go. That wasn't too fun. Some dude "befriended" me and wouldn't leave. Ultimately, he charged $15 for the two of us to go out to our hotel -- about an hour drive from the airport. That was about a third of the hotel person rate -- but covered both of us.
As usual, there are always some "first things" you notice when in a new country. Here, one of the things was that I don't have a clue on how to even start deciphering the Arabic symbols for writing. The next thing was that the driving is very aggressive and leaves even the nicest cars scuffed on all sides.
The apartment buildings as we were heading towards Cairo looked relatively normal, but covered with an amazing amount of satellite dishes. As we were heading back out of Cairo, the buildings all turned to brick. None of them looked finished, though. And most had many holes, missing walls, open areas, etc. Plenty of people looked like they were living in them.
Also as we headed out on the west side of the Nile, we noticed that there was a lot of farming going on in between the buildings. Since it was mid-afternoon on a Monday, normal business was in full swing.
The hotel had a security check for cars with two guys and two dogs sweeping the cars with mirrors and noses, respectively. Around the rest of it was a nice high wall with various types of wire and poky things.
Another thing we noticed was the presence of armed military, both in the airport and in various high locations while driving away from it and at the airport itself. We just don't see that sort of stuff back home, in normal conditions.
Well, as I've been writing this, the pyramid lighting has been turned off. I guess it is getting a little late. ;)
Well, time to put this away before room service arrives.
