Egypt, Jordan and Israel are axed

We waited and waited but the situation never got better. Egypt is still in turmoil and worse, Jordan is now also experiencing protests and Israel has been hit by its first suicide bomber in years. The region is too unstable for our liking. Our friends and family will certainly feel relieved :).

Since our intention was to stay over a month in the Middle East, we’ll now have more time to explore other parts of the world or stay longer at existing destinations. We still have to figure out the details.

We are still going to Oman for now, as it remains about the only country in the Middle East that hasn’t seen any protests. However, we are keeping a close eye on the situation.

We’ll keep you posted.

A great day in my life

It started out with a simple question : « do you mind visiting our school tomorrow? » asked Mycel, a student we had met at a local museum.

This was a golden opportunity. I was again given the chance to exchange with the youth of another country and possibly have an impact on perceptions of Western culture, such an important issue in Muslim countries.

We visited a rural school close to Yokyakarta. It was obvious that Mycel had told everybody that foreigners were going to visit the school. As we walked towards the main office, classrooms stopped functioning, literally. Excitement was building in the air. The children were now much more concerned with looking outside the windows than listening to the teacher.

We walked into our first classroom. We had prepared a set of questions for the children so that they can practice their English. One of the questions was “What comes to mind when we say “Canada”?

I was very naive in my expectations. I thought that the kids would answer “snow”, “cold”, “big country”. Instead the unanimous answer we received in all the classes we visited was “Justin Bieber”.

Wow. I have never heard a song from the pop star but these kids sure as heck know what he is all about. So for the rest of the trip whenever I was asked about my country, I would say “I am from Canada”…”You know, Justin Bieber…”. I think the Canadian government should provide Justin Bieber with a compensation package for being Canada’s most well-known ambassador in the developing world (don’t ask me if this is good or bad).

Other questions included “What do you like most about Indonesia?” or “What would like to change in Indonesia?” The answers for the latter were always the same: corruption in the government (Indonesia is doing poorly in the Corruption Index from Transparency International).

The kids also had questions such as “What is your favorite Indonesian food” and “What is your profession”. This was a tricky question, as Ania and I both work for the federal government. In Indonesia working for the government is bad. Very bad. It means you are corrupt and sleazy. Ania and I worked hard to explain, without offending anyone, that we do good things for the people in our country.

We had so much fun with the kids. It was a magical day.

Oh, by the way students at the school are spending 36 hours a week in the classroom. They have school on Saturday and plenty of homework to do. And I am not talking about classrooms with computers, fast Internet access, and other distractions that make it so easy not to learn: I am talking about a wood stool, a table and the old chalkboard.

Asia is studying hard. As a result Asia is rising. The Western world should take notice before it is too late.

New pictures

I've uploaded the latest pictures. This time we are showing you the island of Java in Indonesia.

I will upload a second set of Bali pictures shortly.

The most photographed objects in Yogyakarta: us!

Yogya (Yogyakarta) is a nice and lively student town on Java.

We arrived there curious to see the town and its people. And we soon discovered that people of Yogya were as equally curious to see us.

It started as soon as we entered an art market on our first day. People were looking atus as if we were some celebrities and at some point a woman came to me, handed me her baby to hold, and started taking pictures of me and her child!

When we were walking on the street people stopped us countless times to take pictures with us or just to chat. We found it very charming. Not only it boosted our egos :-) but it provided us numerous opportunities to meet people and learn about the "real" Indonesia.

Since not everybody spoke English, we started asking our Indonesian friend Jhonny to teach us some little phrases in Indonesian. I found the language surprisingly easy to learn and soon was able to say quite a few simple things to struck the conversation. As it was to be expected, my Indonesian was greatly appreciated, no matter how poor it was :-)

Among others, we met quite a few groups of high school students who were tasked by their English teachers to interview international tourists, in order to practice their English. There was one group of students, which we found particularly nice and we offered them to meet for lunch the next day to talk some more. At lunch, they told us that we were invited to visit their school if we wanted. We thought it would be fun and agreed.

Visiting a high school in Yogya was one of the best experienced I've had so far during our trips. We visited 3 classes, talked about the countries we came from, asking students about life in Indonesia, and about their plans and dreams. Our reception was incredible. If all students were like this, teaching languages would be the most rewarding job on earth. And to be sure, we loved it as much as the students. In one class we ended up singing Polish and Canadian national anthem. In another, we ended up dancing traditional Quebec dances. And in return, some students sang for us and other danced traditional Indonesian dances. In one class we organized a Pictionary game and had as much fun as the students playing it.

The day ended with a photo session, as a lot of students wanted to have their pictures taken with us. I exchanged emails with 2 students whom we got to know a little better. And within 3 days I received about 15 messages from different students who wanted to practice their English and German, or just wanted to say hi :-)

On the way back to the hotel (and after we paid a visit to one of the student who invited us to her house) Marc and I decided that if we ever have long enough vacation again, we will come back to Yogya to teach languages in high-school!

Earning money the hard way

Some people are faced with dire poverty in Indonesia.

At the bus station in Denpasar, we watched with sadness a small 80-year-old woman rummage through garbage bins to find plastic bottles. She was carrying a large garbage bag full of plastic bottles. I told Johny it was quite sad to see the elderly struggle at such an old age, an unthinkable occurrence in Canada. What struck me the most is that Johny told me that for one kilo of plastic bottles, the old lady gets about 1000 rupiah.

I was in shock. 1000 rupyiah is about 15 cents Canadian. I quickly asked Jean-Philippe, a guy from Quebec who had also tagged along for the trip, to give me whatever coins he had in his pocket. I put his money together with mine and quickly walked over to the old lady. I handed over the money, which was about 4000 rupiah. As I put the money into her hand, her small eyes lit up in amazement. Without saying a word she nodded and walked away from the bus station.

I gave her about 50 cents Canadian, which was more than enough for her to take the day off, maybe the whole week.

Where there is poverty there is prostitution. Cheap prostitution. When we were in Yogyakarta in a restaurant and noticed that a beautiful girl was sitting next to a Western guy. The couple had obviously “met” recently and didn’t seem to have a lot to talk about. Johny explained that Yogyakarta is an “easy” city where an extra 25 000 rupiah is all one needs to spend the night with a young lady. 25 000 rupiah is about 3.20$. How unfortunate.

A final event to our story. We were on a ferry to Java. We were on the top level of the ferry enjoying the beautiful sight. A group of young boys were sitting on the ledge of the ferry. One of them looked at me and said “Mister, I jump!” I took this as a joke. It turned out that this was no joke. Three boys jumped into the ocean and started a game the locals seem to know. Basically, the kids in the water are playing a “catch the coin” game. Some of the locals started throwing 200, 400 rupiahs in the water. Of course the coins will sink quickly so the boys have to swim and dive under water to retrieve the coins before they are lost in the ocean. What’s truly sad is that the boys are trying to catch these coins in the foul, oily water of a polluted port.

These boys were risking their health for a few coins.

Cruel world.

Meet Johny

This is Johny. We met Johny a few days after we arrived in Denpasar. We had been circling a neighborhood trying to find the “Lorena” ticket station to get us to Yogyakarta on Java. I pulled over and asked Johny for directions. Johny did not hesitate to tell us that Lorena was a shitty bus company with a record number of road accidents. Better go with a reliable company called “Safari”.

Seeing that we were fairly lost in Denpasar, Johny decided to bring us to the station himself. Thanks to him we may have avoided disaster (at the bus station I saw a severely dented Lorena Bus with major windscreen cracks). How lucky we were!

After we bought our tickets, Johny invited us to his house so that we could have tea/coffee together. Johny’s hospitality knows no bounds, as he insisted on cooking a special Indonesian dish for us.

We also discovered that Johny lived in Yogyakarta for many years and seemed to know the area very well. Johny told us that he was on vacation the following week and asked us if he could come with us. Of course!

In Yogyakarta we learned that Johny had an exceptional talent for singing. He told us that he had won many national singing contests. One night he brought us to one of his favorite karaoke joint. After an excellent meal he picked up the microphone.

I was floored. And so was Ania. What we were hearing was pure delight. In fact I have never seen somebody sing live so well. Now I understood why he took second place in Indonesia in opera singing.

Johny made our stay in Java unforgettable. He brought us to his favorite restaurants and showed us places that we’ll never find in a travel guide, including beautiful towns in the mountains.

Encounters like this make a great trip even better. Ania and I will make sure we see more of Johny in our life.

Thievery at Uluwatu Temple

Ania and I decided to visit the peninsula south of Kuta with our scooter. Not only did we find a beautiful, unpolluted beach but we also had the chance to visit a major temple on the island.

The temple, Uluwatu, was built in the 11th century. Interestingly at the entrance we were offered “monkey protection” for 10 USD. A message warned tourists to remove any shiny items, hats, or any other objects that may be of interest to the resident monkeys.

As we reached the main courtyard of the temple, we saw dozens of monkeys hanging out in trees and on the ground. Many of them were playing a catch-me-if-you-can kind of game in a small pool, which was hilarious. These monkeys are not that much of a threat, I thought to myself.

Then I saw a monkey sneak up behind a young student, jump on his backpack and snatch the cap of the kid in the blink of an eye. The crowd burst out laughing as the kid tried to understand what had just happened. By now it was too late: the monkey was high on a tree branch holding his prized possession.

Throwing objects at the monkey, yelling at it or cursing at it yielded nothing. Only the intervention of a “guard” armed with monkey snacks brought any result. Basically, the monkey will trade whatever it stole in return of a treat.

No wonder monkeys are such adept thieves in Uluwatu. :)

I had to defend myself once against a coordinated attack from the sneaky little bastards. It turned out that Ania was an accomplice to the monkey, too. I was sitting nicely on a flight of stairs while Ania was taking a few pictures. However, she saw two monkeys creep up behind me and jump of my backpack. Their target was one Bob the Builder, renowned building contractor. However, Bob was strapped tightly to the backpack which meant that the monkeys had to retreat empty-handed.

Ania managed to get a perfect shot of the thieves. Have a look at the pictures!

Driving in Bali - exhilarating...and dangerous

Let me put it bluntly: I’ve never seen that many scooters in my life. There must be 5 scooters for every car on Bali. It does make sense to use a scooter in Bali because most of the roads are very narrow.

However, I think that the main reason why scooters are so popular in Bali is that they provide drivers with an absolute “carte blanche” to do anything and everything on the road.

Now please close your eyes and imagine the most reckless or dangerous traffic violation you can imagine. Do you have that mental image now? Terrifying isn’t it?

Well what happens on the roads of Bali is even scarier than what you just imagined.

Let’s have a quiz to determine if you are ready to drive on the roads in Bali:

Q – How many scooters can fit (width) in one lane?
A – 5,6,7? When there is not enough space, use the minuscule shoulder lane or simply take over the lane of opposing traffic.

Q – Is there a way to avoid bumper to bumper traffic?
A – Why drive on the sidewalk of course. You’ll be driving on sidewalks a lot in Bali, probably along with dozens of other scooter drivers who just couldn’t care less about traffic lights.

Q – You own a scooter and your friend sends you an SMS. What do you do?
A – No time to pull over. Better to text on the go.

Q – Traffic goes one way only. You need to go the opposite direction.
A – Just drive on the wrong side of the road until you reach a set of lights. Don’t worry, going the wrong way down the shoulder is entirely normal.

I’ve seen buses, trucks, and cars on the opposing lane take over my lane entirely as they figured that scooters would just have to use the shoulder lane or the sidewalk. I’ve seen large trucks decide to overtake other trucks while going uphill or on right curves.

Honking doesn’t help much. Better go with the flow and accept that driving in Bali is unlike anything you’ve ever seen in your country. Take scooters. They transport an array of goods, from live chickens and ducks to long wooden poles, large panes of glass or plywood (held by a passenger), huge crates or baskets with eggs. Seeing a scooter transport a huge crate full of live chickens is as funny as it is dangerous. Just today I’ve seen 6 people stacked up on a small scooter. Possibilities are truly limitless.

So you still want to drive in Bali? My best advice is to go with the flow and stick close to other scooters, even if what they are doing on the road would land you in jail for a month in your country. It may seem counterintuitive but it is your only option. Traffic lights are rare in Bali and when they do occur, they are mostly ignored by drivers. So don’t wait for the thick traffic to nicely open up so you can exit the gas station, or you’ll be spending more time at the gas station than on the beach. Better to follow the other scooters and hit the gas and hope that you’ll be able to cut through the traffic.

Bali - Second impressions

After deciding that staying and relaxing in Kuta was not an option, we rented a scooter and starting exploring.

Our trips confirmed what we had suspected - once out of Kuta, Bali gets so much better!

The traffic is still crazy (although much calmer than outside Kuta - Marc will have a post on that), but the surrounding landscape presents a welcome contrast to the busy chaos of city life. The Hindu villages are very picturesque, since many houses, shops and community centres have gates or even whole structures built in traditional Hindu style. And between villages and cities there are rice paddies stretching until the ocean or, looking the other way, until they meet the mountains on the horizon.

And I should certainly mention that people outside Kuta are very different, too. Once there are less tourists around, the commercial side in Balinese people gives way to the human side. We met a few very nice persons but our most special encounter took place on the two days after we had arrived in Bali. We were in the capital Denpassar trying to get tickets to go to Java (the main island). We were lost and asking for directions when we met Jhonny. He helped us out with the tickets and when he found out that we had no fixed plans for the rest of the day, he insisted that we have lunch at his house and meet his father and sister. And so we did. We spent the whole day together and by the end if it Jhonny decided to go to Java with us!

Bali – First impressions = totally overrated

I heard such grandiose things about Bali. Everyone who visited the island seemed to have the best time ever.

My first impression of Bali is: how could that be?

Another name for Bali-Kuta, Kuta being the most touristy part of Bali, should be Gigantic Sales Pitch Show. Every 3 meters is someone ready to harass us to buy otherwise useless trash. Countless number of women approach us to offer us manicures or massages. Men specialize in money changing (scams) and “transport”. At night, a drug dealer is on standby on every street corner.

The beach has to be the most disgusting I have ever seen. Every 50 meters is a pile of trash that washed ashore. The ocean is full of plastic objects of all sorts. The beach obviously suffers from a serious case of pollution.

Knowing that Bali-Kuta is a “hot” destination for surfers, I cannot imagine how desperate/crazy/oblivious one needs to be to come to Kuta for surfing. Of course by looking at the number of prostitutes, pimps, and drug dealers, I can imagine why this place may be of some interest for people desperately in need of action.

However, Kuta does have its positives. There are many small temples and numerous offerings to God, which indicate that Balinese people, notwithstanding the craziness brought by mass tourism, remain staunchly traditional. The local architecture is impressive and most hotels present inviting gardens full of scent that reminds me of Indian tradition.

Tomorrow we will rent a scooter for 3 days. We want to flee this tourist trap and hopefully manage to see what Bali is all about. The beautiful temples, mountains, and famous landmarks, all found far away from Kuta, will surely be a redeeming feature for the island.

Singapore Wrap-Up

The Great : Singapore has four main ethnic groups: Malay, Indian, Indonesian, and Chinese. The beauty of it is that the communities really seem to get along in this small city. For a traveler this means that Hindu temples will be found next to Bhuddist shrines. Culturally Singapore is inspiring notwithstanding its reputation for being a boring Asian city (which it is not).

The Hidden: Not much in that category.

The Overrated: Chinese food. It’s exciting to eat fried food the first 2-3 times, but it gets a bit yucky after a while. I seriously don’t know how Chinese people can be so thin when I see them eat fried noodles and pork for breakfast.

The Ugly: accommodation in general. Quality is subpar unless you are ready to fork out hundreds of dollars for a room.

Other Observations:

*Singapore is the Mecca for shoppers. There are malls everywhere. Electronic gadget lovers, rejoice! We found six story shopping malls filled with only electronic stores. Asians have a reputation for loving games and gadgets, and I assure you that this is the case.

*Eating out is generally cheap in Singapore: a good curry costs about 2.80$ while a Chinese meal costs about 1.50.

Marina Bay Sands Hotel

Any journey in Singapore must include a stroll along Marina Bay especially by night. The area offers beautiful walks and some truly grandiose sights. The entire Singapore skyline lights up at dark. Of course, the newly built Marina Sands Bay Hotel offers another very good reason to visit the place.

Ania and I visited the hotel to see what the fuss was all about. The interior is worthy of a world-class five star hotel. We took a coffee at one of the restaurants as traditional Japanese music was being played. At 4.20$ a cup of coffee, I can say that this was a bargain!

To those interested in renting a room at Marina Bay Sands Hotel, the cheapest room will set you back about 300$ per night. This will give you access to the top pool where the hotel has earned its glossy reputation. Potential interestees should be warned though that the hotel is a serious tourist attraction and that the lobby will be swarming with tourists!

Kalllang Rriver Backkpackers: our first ****hole

We told you we would tell you when we find a real ****hole. Well we are staying in one for sure. Singapore is not in the business of catering to budget travelers. Hotel rooms of good quality are way north of 150$. So hostels are our only option here.

Our private bedroom isn’t the worse. We can live with a bunk bed. What isn’t acceptable is the whole shower/bathroom thing.

Here’s how this place is set up: the washer and dryer are in the room left of the (disgusting) shower. On the right side of the shower is the bathroom.

The first day Ania and I couldn’t figure out why the bathroom floor was always watery. We soon understood why. Basically someone washes his dirty clothes in the washer, which spews out the dirty water on the floor of our shower through a drain. The drain seems to overflow quite easily because much of the water that goes through the drain in the shower finds itself on the floor of the bathroom, which is also connected to the same drainage system. Truly, truly repulsive.

As you can imagine we are constantly wading in disgusting water as we shower. Our shower is in fact so disgusting that Ania and I both agreed that taking a shower every other day was acceptable in this situation. :)

Oh, and there is no toilet paper available in the bathroom. There is a pot next to the sink to help clean the fingers. After all, our hostel is run by Indonesians (many have long fingernails on the left hand…no wonder Indonesians find it insulting when a visitor presents the left hand for shaking), who couldn’t care less about toilet paper. All one needs to wash up the fingers properly. I am NOT making this up.

I am wondering if Ania prefers pit toilets with red-back spiders in Australia to our zero star shower in our 0.5 star hostel? :)

Singapore - Welcome to the Fine city!

Welcome to the fine city!

There is something that any stranger should know about clean Singapore: it means business.

Singapore has a very elaborate fine system for serious sins. I lifted the following from a Web site that covered the situation.

One can expect a 500-1000$ fine for the following offenses:

Eating or drinking anything on the subway
Littering
Possession of chewing gum
Failure to flush the toilet after using a public facility
Using racial slurs
Spitting in public
Feeding birds
Urinating in an elevator
Jaywalking
Possession of pornography
Using unsecured wireless internet
Smoking in public

More serious “offenses” are dealt with caning (Where your buttocks is spanked with a cane.):

Vandalism
Graffiti
Possession of fire crackers
Overstaying your visa length

Singapore is not messing around. They caned over 6,000 people in one year in 2007. That's a lot of spanking going on, and I'm talking about the spanking that makes you bleed. Anyway, as a tourist, as long as you think about what you're doing and use the trash cans then it should be no problem. :)

Monthly Trip Summary (4)

Feb. 9 2011 – Mar. 8 2011

Summary of the fourth month of our trip

Number of countries visited: 1 (we were still in Australia!)

Number of flights taken: 0

Number of posts added to our blog: 12

Number of marital conflicts: 1. Marc and I expressed a little too fervently our different opinions on the best way of spending time on our last Australian trip. We pretty much differed on the optimal amount of time we should spend noodling and fossicking... I will let you guess who wanted the option of turning the whole trip into a fossicking expedition :-)

Best overnight stay: Definitely the apartment of our friend's parents. It was beautifully situated overlooking Sydney Harbour but, more importantly, we had a great time seeing our friend Marty again and we got along with his parents very well. After talking to them about traveling we realized that we can hardly think of a place they haven't visited. It will take a few more round the world trips before we catch up with them!

Worst overnight stay: It will have to be the night before we got to Darwin. We spent the whole night checking if our van was getting flooded or not. Check Marc's post on cyclone Carlos for details.

Best Call we made: choosing to drive from Cairns to Sydney through the inland route instead of along the coast. We were hesitating but decided that we wanted to see some more outback before leaving Australia altogether. Right after we made this decision we heard on the radio that there were flood warnings all along the coast…

Worst Call we made: Deciding to spend our first night in Alice Spring at the entrance to the city instead of going to a proper campervan park. Alice Springs is not exactly famous for being a safe city… When we were ready for bed, a car pulled up next to us and its passengers started consuming lots of alcohol very quickly. We decided not to wait to see whether it was a peaceful party and instead made our escape into MacDonnel Ranges.

What next?

Our adventures in Australia are coming to an end. Ania and I had a fabulous time in the land down under. We will miss:

- exploring the Outback, its towns, the rugged landscape;
- fossicking for precious stones;
- snorkeling magnificent reefs;
- meeting old friends and making new friendships.

What we will not miss:

- the costly prices. Australia is VERY expensive;
- the sorry state of the Aboriginal people;
- the chance encounter with a deadly snake or spider (Ania insisted I put that one in :))

We will be flying out of Sydney to Singapore where we will stay for a few days. Then we will stay a few weeks in Indonesia on the islands of Bali and Lombok.

We don’t know what to expect in terms of Internet access so updates may be sporadic.

Stay tuned!

Pictures uploaded - what the heck is opal?

Hi all,

You can view our latest pictures. Everything from the Great Barrier Reef to the Sydney Opera House is included.

I've also put in a few pictures for those of you who wonder what the heck is opal.

Enjoy!

Cairns to Sydney Wrap-Up

The Great : Kenneth and the community at Grawin. We could not expect a happier ending to our outback adventures in Australia. Ken showed us his private mine and even allowed us to mine opal. This was a unique experience.

The Hidden : Carnavon Gorge. The gorge is on the inland road from Cairns to Sydney, which means the gorge does not see much traffic. Tourists don’t know what they are missing for the gorge has a beautiful rainforest and great walks. Carnavon Gorge deserves much more attention.

The Overrated : Abercrombie cave. What is boasted as the biggest limestone cave in the southern hemisphere is a bit underwhelming. The walk inside the cave is short and many of the side walks that allow the visitor to explore remote parts of the cave were closed. At 15$ per person, Ania and I felt a bit shortchanged.

The Ugly : Roads in inland Queensland are a public danger. There are massive unmarked potholes pretty much everywhere. I had to dodge several potholes that would have pretty much wrecked our rental car. Once we crossed into New South Wales, the contrast was immediate. Queensland, fix up your roads!

Meet Kenneth

This man’s story is not common. Born to poor parents, Kenneth soon found himself homeless as a result of his parents divorce. Poor and always hungry, Ken was a bum in is early teen who had to play it rough to survive. A good bloke in Queensland gave him an opportunity to work and taught him how to read.

Ken never forgot that someone was so generous to him. In turn, he vowed to be generous to others for the rest of his life.

Ken worked in many jobs as a farmer and truck driver for 50 years, until he fell in love with opals and decided to become an opal miner. He found a community that suited his lifestyle in Grawin close to the Lightning Ridge in New South Wales.

Ania and I met Kenneth in a pub he owns, the Shepard Inn. For if Kenneth has a craving for precious stones, he surely doesn’t mind starting new ventures. As I said Ken is a generous man. His main goal is to give back to his community. He decided to diversify the local economy and find new markets for opal. In order to do so he made contact with Chinese officials to showcase opal. A few very rich Chinese businessmen visited his shack in Grawin to see his mine. They seemed extremely interested in the potential of opal. So much so that they in turn invited Kenneth to China – all expenses paid – so that he can promote opal in 20 cities or so! So Kenneth is going to China in May.

The fairy tale doesn’t stop here though. The Chinese businessmen want to take Grawin’s opal business to a whole new level: they want to build about 20 luxury apartment blocks in Grawin. Rich Chinese tourists will be flown in to visit the mines and buy opal. Kenneth said that this will create new jobs for the local economy. The business plan sees the creation of hundreds of jobs catering for the Chinese tourists. Very clever! (see the irony here? 20 years ago, Chinese nationals were cleaning bed sheets and washing the clothes of Australians. Now Australians are going to wash bed sheets and serve food to the Chinese. China is on the rise, no doubt!)

Ken also wants to change the business of selling opal. Miners usually get shortchanged in the grand scheme of things. For example a miner unearths a fabulous stone he evaluates at 20 000$. The market price for that stone is much higher, maybe 35 000$. So opal cutters and other intermediaries will offer the miner 12 000$, which is a rip off price. In turn, the opal cutter will sell it to various clients at 35 000$. Ken wants to change that. What he has done is set up a community of miners who will sell directly to clients, therefore bypassing the “sharks” as he calls them. Another great idea for his community!

What is interesting about Ken is that he is cash poor but asset rich. Very rich: he has found four massive opal stones worth several millions each. What he wants to do is find buyers willing to pay a fair price for his stones. As he said, he is in no rush to collect his millions – he is in the opal business because he loves the work and the community. Sitting on millions and not cashing in – what a man!

Ken was also extremely generous with us. After a heavy rain flooded our tent, Ken invited us to his place to stay for the night. In the morning, Ken was so nice as to invite us to tour his mine! I mean this is no ordinarily offer. Most of the miners will not even invite members of their family to tour their mines. The reason is insurance. The cost is prohibitive and the risks are real. I don’t know why Ken decided to invite us, but I suspect that Ania’s deep blue eyes had something to do with it. :)

Her Highness: Great Barrier Reef

We were always a bit skeptical about the Great Barrier Reef. One of the reasons is that to snorkel on the Reef, you have to book an organized tour, which makes the experience an expensive one. It is also less adventurous than snorkeling on fringe reefs, which you can access from a beach and explore at your own pace and for as long as you want.

Moreover, we heard a lot of mixed comments from other adventurers. We talked to people who snorkeled with us at some of our favorite places, such as Fiji and Coral Bay in Western Australia, and a few said that the Great Barrier Reef was still the best place, but some others found their experience in Fiji or Coral Bay better.

After some deliberation we decided to go and see for ourselves. Well, let me save you the suspense: it was sooooo worth it! It is true that it was very touristy, that we had to share our experience with 50 or so other people, but on this one day we saw all the fishes we saw at the other reefs and more.

The corals were at least as amazing (if not more) as in Coral Bay, and the fishes more plentiful and even more varied. Our four most special encounters were the following:

1. A huge Napoleon Fish (on the first picture). It was almost as long as me (over 1.5m length) and massive but at the same time playfully colourful. It looked to me as if somebody took a colourful little aquarium fish and blew it out of proportion.

2. Three reef sharks we saw swimming around and chilling out. I watched them for a few minutes and then went closer to the boat, just in case. Marc took on the responsibility to put sharks in pictures as a proof of our encounter (I should stress that reef sharks are not at all dangerous to humans, I was fleeing only because I couldn’t handle the psychological pressure).

3. Some brown turtles that let us swim with them for a long time before they decided to go away (and if a turtle decides to go away there is no catching it in the water).

4. Ubiquitous parrot fish, which are very pretty and colourful. But the most impressive thing about them is that you can actually hear them before you see them – they snack on the coral in a very loud manner! (the picture will be posted later on Picasa)

And on top of it all, we got to try diving for the first time in our lives. It was already included in the price of our trip, so we thought: why not? After listening to the briefing and safety instructions, I almost decided against it. But I’m very happy that I fought my fears and decided to try. It is true that during our dive (and it is probably true for diving on the Great Barrier Reef in general) I didn’t see much more than when I was snorkeling. But the distance between me and the marine life felt much smaller. Instead of watching the spectacle from above I was in the middle of it. Quite an exhilarating feeling!

Marc and I strongly suspect that an experience on the Great Barrier Reef largely depends on the trip one chooses. Some trips only visit the inner reef, which is closer, which in turn makes the trip cheaper. But the inner reef is usually more affected by the high number of tourists and greater proximity to the shores. Therefore there is less marine life and coral to be seen. We chose an outer reef excursion, which is more expensive, but worth every penny.

Even though we have now seen Her Highness The Great Barrier Reef, we are still looking forward to snorkeling in Bali, Thailand and, especially, Egypt. And if I gather all my courage once again, maybe we will even venture for another dive some day :)