Category Archives: Travelogue

A collection of travelogues from my trips around the world, peppered with reviews and recommendations of accommodation, walking tours, restaurants and pubs.

Europe, France, Travelogue

Travelogue: Champagne

25 August 2015 cl@rks

CHAMPAGNE

22-25 August 2015

The plan to visit Champagne was hatched when Lixi’s milestone birthday reared its very lovely head on the horizon. It was clear that a plan needed to be made; and the plan needed to be epic. There would have to be Bubbly. LOTS of Bubbly. So what better place to celebrate than the home of Bubbly itself?

After deftly overcoming the usual obstacles (leave, flights, budgets, itinerary) in a matter of days, the plan was made and we were set for Epernay. And stoked for another visit to our beloved France!

Our first validation that our decision had been a wise one was when we were upgraded to Business Class on the Dubai – Paris second half of the outbound leg of the journey. Having both achieved Silver status on Emirates, Christian and I had taken advantage of the free Business Lounge access to pass the time between flights. It makes the world of difference to the 3 hour stop-over to have an abundance of comfortable armchairs, extensive buffet and open bar at our disposal!

The lounge also has its own boarding gate, which is where we were told by the lady checking boarding cards that we’d be travelling on a brand new A380 and she’d taken the liberty of upgrading us. What a pleasure!

It was a tough job balancing enjoying all the extras that come with the premium service and getting some shut-eye. Just a couple of glasses of Champagne (to fit the theme of the trip, of course) and a few episodes on the big-screen telly, before transforming the seat into a flat bed for a perfect sleep… until a delicious Eggs Benedict breakfast with crispy light croissant, Bucks Fizz and an assortment of other accompaniments.

Our excitement at landing at Charles de Gaulle was dampened by an hour-long wait for our luggage. Clearly the downside to travelling on such an enormous aircraft. When we finally had our bags, there were still loads of people waiting for theirs and we thought that the (real) Business Class and Emirates Skywards Gold members (who had their own carousel) couldn’t have been very impressed having paid all that tom and then having to wait around forever to get their stuff.

While our wait at the carousel didn’t feel like time best spent, we still had just enough tome to catch the RER to Gare du Nord and connect with a Metro to get to Gare L’Est in time for our midday meeting.

It was, as always, awesome to meet up with our friends and, as usual, our communal holiday began with excited chattering about the journey, news from home and impressions on what lay ahead on our shared adventure.

The others had already bought train tickets for all of us, so all that remained was to make our way to the platform for our 12h36 train to Epernay.

We’d picked a perfect day to arrive and emerged from the station into a warm and clear day in the town that was to be our home base for the next 3 nights.

First stop was to pick up our rental car. Easily done since the agent office was conveniently located behind the town’s church – a landmark impossible to miss. Soon we were in our electric blue hatchback and headed off on the wrong side of the road (well, right side for France, but wrong side for us) to try and find our house.

A few wrong turns – which we wrote off as “sightseeing” – and we found our house. It had been another Airbnb booking and proved to be a gem.

The house was triple storey, with living area (lounge, dining room, kitchen and guest loo) on the ground floor, 2 bedrooms and a bathroom on the middle level and the main loft-style en suite bedroom and a big sewing room on the top floor. The coup de gras was a lovely back garden, where we enjoyed a celebratory bottle of chilled champagne to welcome our arrival.

Our host had left the bottle for us as a gift for Lixi’s birthday, indicating that it was from her father-in-law’s vineyard and that there were more bottles from his range in the fridge, should we so wish to purchase them. We rated this Goulard Brut a 5.5, but appreciated the gesture and could envisage ourselves dipping into the stocks should the need arise.

Tastebuds piqued, it was time to do some real tasting! Epernay is famous for Avenue de Champagne, so that made a logical first port of call on our mission. We trooped down our road, past the church and into town. We did a loop through the centre, round the traffic circle and into Avenue de Champagne, facing up the street, with its wide cream pavements and grand buildings lining either side, with regal black metal palisade fencing and gold lettering spelling out names famous and aloofedly unfamiliar, but all classy and French. The first door on the left was a Tourist Office, so we stopped in and got a map and advice on Epernay and the popular Route de Champagne (in anticipation of a roadtrip).

Map in hand and plans in the making, our first tasting was at a Champagne bar called Comme, which Lix had already pencilled in our preparatory research phase. It was a good call and we bullishly started our tasting with a bottle of Pinot Meunier (6.5) and Rosé de Saigner (4), beautifully paired with a pork and mushroom ribelette, portion of ham and a cheese board, served with a basket of toast and French loaf. Obviously.

The summer sun is deceptive so even though we only left Comme in the evening, it still felt like daytime… so we stopped for sundowners en route home, where we had a very lovely time people-watching (well, mostly people’s plates-watching) and soaking in the Frenchness of it all.

Exercising our own Frenchness, dinner supplies were sourced from the Carrefour and consisted of paté, chicken, ham, cheeses, breads, chianti and 1664 (beer). It was a divine night for a walk home and a lingering evening around the diningroom table.

SUNDAY

Christian and I were in the top floor loft room, so the early sunshine through the uncovered sky lights ensured we were awake and ready to make the most of Sunday morning. Feeling ambitious, we kitted up and took a jog around the town.

This proved to be a marvellous plan because we not only got a better lay of the land (which revealed that our house was super conveniently located), but also managed to catch the town market. While this was little more than a flower stall, a green grocer stall and a lady selling rotisserie chickens and roast potatoes (that very nearly had us doing Sunday roast for breakfast!), the market did lure us to what must – without any exaggeration – be the most heavenly store in the world! A deli that had so many delicious things that there are too many to even begin describing! We exercised enormous self-control and just nabbed a couple of crêpes stuffed with cheese, ham and bechamel sauce and considered ourselves blessed to have been exposed to such a sacred place.

Returning to the nest with our spoils, we regrouped and hatched the day’s plan: Catch a train to Reims, where some of the bigger houses are open on Sundays. This would be easy enough to do as the trains between Epernay and Reims are regular and (relatively) inexpensive (assuming you’re not travelling on the Rand).

We decided on the midday train, giving us enough time to go via Avenue de Champagne for a quick sneaky tasting en route to the station. We picked Collard Picard – for no reason other than it was the first gate that was open – and sampled their Brut (6.4) in a very civilised fashion at one of the table and chair set-ups neatly arranged in their perfect white pebble garden.

A good starter to the day’s main event; we nipped down to the station and were soon on the train to Reims.

The tourist office is right outside the station, so it was a simple task to review the big map to decide where we were going and to get a take-away map to get us there.

The destination of choice was Taittenger; the route set to take us past the other big attraction in town, the Cathedral.

Sadly, the weather had taken a turn and it had started to drizzle but, fortunately, it wasn’t cold and we were on a mission, so it didn’t dampen our spirits.

Luck was on our side and we arrived, by complete serendipity with not a stitch of pre-planning, with 5 minutes to go until the next tour, which started with a video presentation on the usual history of the estate and an introduction to Champagne and its terminology, preceding a guided cellar tour and concluding with a tasting.

We were taken 12m underground, where it is a chilly 12 degrees, and shown the vaults where the 4km of chalk-walled tunnels house 2 million bottles of arguably the world’s finest Champagne. These bottles are stored for years and turned by hand (alternating a quarter revolution one way and an eighth revolution the other way bi-weekly) to ensure the perfect fermentation and meticulous sediment extraction, so that anywhere from 7 years upward, perfect Champagne can be distributed all over the world.

The tour was also interesting since the tunnels themselves are so steeped in history, having housed clergymen escaping persecution hundreds of years ago and creating an entire underground village for locals during the World Wars. The chalk walls are soft enough that many people have carved messages and drawings and it was fascinating to see how these have transcended time, while the Champagne sits waiting to be ready.

Best part of the tour though was of course the tasting… and it was well worth the wait. Our group rated the Brut a solid 8.1 and the Vintage 2008 (meaning all the grapes from that bottle were from the 2008 harvest) a respectable 6.3.

We hadn’t eaten since the morning crêpes and it was by now well into the mid-afternoon, so lunch was most certainly the next order of the day.

We easily retraced our footsteps to the main avenue that led up from the station, that was lined with cafés and restaurants.

We sat at the first that appealed… only to be told that the kitchen was closed until dinnertime. It made the next best choice somewhat easier though, since there was only one place clearly open. Fortunately, it proved itself to be both quick and amazing, which were the exact two qualities we were looking for and soon I was happily munching on a 300g “French mincemeat”, which is sort of a flat meatball or a burger without the bun, and very good crispy pomme frîtes.

The boys managed to wolf their food down so as to pop into the English pub across the Avenue – lured in equal parts by the big screen football and an enormous neon Guinness sign – to gullet a stout before we had to get back to the station.

We got back to Epernay just after 5, leaving an hour to do some more tasting. De Castellane was an obvious choice since it was near the station and had a big imposing branded tower above the building that implied it must be something special. We sampled the Grand Cru, which only earned a very average 6.3 on our (now known to be tough) scale.

Up the hill and back onto Avenue de Champagne, we chose A. Bergère because it was still busy with patrons – usually a good sign. We tasted the Brut (5.2) and the Grand Cru (6.2), while reviewing all we’d seen and done on our afternoon in Reims.

Needing a palate cleanser, we stopped off in a brasserie en route home for a pint, enjoying the evening sunshine after the damp afternoon.

Dinner was then a very French affair with baguettes and paté and cheese and chianti… and 2 bottles of our host’s Goulard Brut (which earned a much higher rating on this second time round and seemed more fairly priced – at 15 Euros a bottle – after having a better idea on the going rates).

MONDAY

Monday morning was not sunny, but much brighter than the previous, no doubt thanks to the previous day’s exuberance. The plan was to roadtrip the region and find a nice chateau for lunch.

We hit the road and headed for Verzy… only to find a ghost town. NOTHING is open on a Monday! Not even the lighthouse… so we’ll never know why in the world they even need a lighthouse!

The drive was still nice (for everyone but Lix, who was tasked with winding around the narrow streets on the wrong side of the road) and it became clear that it would have been a mean feat to taste all the Champagne houses in Champagne in a lifetime, let alone our long weekend! The one little village had its own mini tour route laid out from the town square, with 31 houses in walking distance.

Our ultimate destination was Chalons en Champagne, where we knew we were bound to find something open. And we did.

A delightful bistro that had a perfect set menu offering duck paté, bavette (steak) with shallots and frîtes and a scrumptious crème caramel to finish off.

Returning to Epernay, we went straight to drop the car off so we could resume our mission: complete Avenue de Champagne.

The plan was to walk the full length and do Mercier at the top, but when we got there and found out that we had to do a tour in order to do a tasting, we passed. We’d had the tour the day before and figured there was unlikely to have been any major breakthroughs in Champagne-making overnight, especially since the region doesn’t seem to operate at all on a Monday.

So we went to Michel Gonet instead – a beautiful old house, which has apparently previously housed the British Embassy – and did a leisurely sampling of the Blanc de Blanc (7), Vintage (6.2), Chardonnay (5.2) and Rosé (5.3).

With little time to go before the 6pm closing, the last option available to us on the Avenue was, conveniently, 2 vineyards exhibiting their wares (for free) in the Tourist Office. There we were given background and samples of the Lorint Brut and Rosé (both 5) and the Alain Mercier Chardonnay (5) and Meunier (7.5). We liked the Meunier so much that we asked to buy a bottle. No such luck, the exhibitor loudly told us that he couldn’t sell from the Tourist Office… then whispered his address and told us to meet him in 20 minutes.

Fortunately there was a brasserie next door, so we waited out the time until our “deal” with a pint. We learned a little lesson about experimentation: for me having ordered a Panache (a shandy of sorts, more unusual than unpleasant) and for Robby who had what might very well be The Worst Beer In The World.

Chalking it up to experience, we headed back up the road to meet our Mercier man. True to form, he was waiting in the parking in front of his (gorgeous) boutique hotel, with the back of his van open and ready to effect our transaction. We bought four bottles to reward his efforts.

On our way home, we stopped at L’Univers pub outside the Church and enjoyed our last evening in the company of what is clearly Epernay’s version of Gathering of the Clans. The pub cleverly has a little Tabac in the entrance – a kiosk selling basic supplies – and we marvelled at the simple genius of the one-stop shopping (and how many of our “married with children” friends would offer to pop out for bread or milk to get a quick pint in).

We had planned our supplies perfectly and made a slap-up picnic dinner with the last of the bread, paté, chicken, cheese and garnishes we had leftover from previous meals. Enjoying our last night together at our trusty diningroom table.

TUESDAY

Tuesday was the big day. The day it was all about. Lixi’s birthday. We got up, dressed and packed and made our way downstairs to do presents and have a lingering Champagne (literally) breakfast. Lixi seemed pleased with her haul: a set of engraved Champagne glasses from us and a very lush spa day from Faye. How awesome that was as old friends – as in going way back, not being old ourselves, obviously – get to spend such auspicious occasions together!

We’d opted to catch the earlier train to Paris so as to have less rush on the other side to get to the airport, so our evac from our wonderful holiday house was set for 10, to get us to the station by 10.30 and in to Paris just before 12.

We surfaced from L’Est onto the streets of Paris and made our way toward Gare du Nord, where Lix had earmarked Terminus Nord as our destination. A surreal restaurant with classic decor and antique pieces that looked like it had been frozen in time; like Hemingway or Picasso could have sat at our table in their day.

The service was exceptional and the food exquisite. Those that did, got the escargots they’d been after all holiday – served in the shell with a light parsleyed garlic butter – and we all had steaks of some persuasion for mains, with melt-in-mouth crunchy frîtes. Add a bottle of white and a bottle of red and the bill was gasp-worthy… but you only live once, right?

Asia, Indonesia, Travelogue

Travelogue Bali 4: Sanur & Ubud

14 June 2015 cl@rks

SANUR & UBUD

12-13 June 2015

The fast boat from Lembongan back to the mainland was much smaller than the ones we’d been on previously, taking no more than about 20 people. Presumably this was because of our convenient departure directly from Mushroom Bay and the boats from the main points further up the island would command more traffic. They must have a great understanding of supply and demand as the little boat arrived full and left full, we had no trouble getting a ticket and nobody seemed to have been turned away.

There are 3 boats a day and we’d opted for the 11am to give the best balance of a lie-in on the departure side but still a full day to explore on the arrival side. The concierge (in the loosest use of the word) at our hotel had commended our choice when we’d bought the tickets from him, saying that was low tide. And thank heavens for that; can’t imagine the (unwanted) ab workout my poor unsuspecting relaxed holiday body would’ve had to endure if the tide had been in and our Wave Warrior skipper was crashing through bigger ebs!

On the upside, the journey was barely half an hour.

Arriving in the port, with no sense of direction and no clues on which way to get to our hotel, we dealt with our vulnerability by hailing a taxi. This would have been easier had it not been for the hundreds of scooters parked around the ‘No Parking’ signs, requiring the taxis to do some tricky negotiating to get to the pick-up point.

Our hotel in Sanur was very swish and right on the beachfront; a real gem of a find, discounted to nothing on Agoda.

Our room wasn’t yet ready (it was barely midday and check-in was at 2) so we left the bags with the porter and took a stroll along the beachfront.

The paved pathway and the endless visual stimulus of activity both in the sea and on the beach kept us entertained, while the feet moved themselves one in front of the other. The stroll that turned into a 10km (according to the pedometer on my phone) walk to the very end of the beach and back!

We did stop for refreshment at Le Pirate, one of the many beachfront cafés. We were lured in by their comfy daybeds, the promise of the icy-cold San Miguels and real authentic Balinese pizza. All of which delivered way beyond expectation and took a huge amount of willpower to break away from.

On return to the hotel, we were surprised to find we’d been upgraded. Instead of the original room we’d been allocated in the back corner, we’d been moved to a stunning garden unit near the pool! Asking no questions, lest a mistake be corrected, we scuttled off to our flash new digs and settled into our new station with no effort at all.

We had searched all along the beachfront for an ATM, without success. In need of cash (we’d spent MILLIONS on the islands… which, at 1000:1 didn’t translate into a fortune in Rands), we caught the hotel’s free shuttle into Sanur town where we were told we would find one.

One? There was a literal bank of them!

Much like the shops that cluster according to what they sell, it seems that all the ATMs are positioned together as well. This is a really silly system – the shops must surely struggle when surrounded by direct competition and the banks would definitely service more people if they expanded their footprint.

And you can’t go without cash like you can at home; while more places accept credit card here than in most of the far-flung places we’ve been to, there are still lots of places that don’t. Small traders don’t, taxi drivers don’t and while most hotels and restaurants do, some don’t, so you have to carry cash just in case. Credit card usage also comes at an added 3-5% merchant fee, which stings on top of the 15-21% tax and service fees levied on most bills. By the time you’re done, unless you’re Rain Man, the prices on the bill are only a vague guideline of what you can sort of expect to pay.

Good thing we got cash though as this opened up our dinner options. After a swift sundowner at the hotel pool bar, we headed along the trusty beachpath to find ourselves some dinner.

We found a homely lively real mom ‘n pops seafood shack where we had delicious fresh prawns, deep-fried calamari rings and a brilliant snapper fillet, grilled to perfection in a garlic butter so that the outside had a crisp to it. The food was served with traditional Balinese condiments – a red, slightly grainy hot saucy and an oil-based onion relish.

Thank heavens for the walk back to the hotel after all of that food or we’d never have been able to fulfill our planned early night (in anticipation of our early morning day tour to Ubud).

We did manage to get up at the princely hour of 8.15 (very early by our Bali standards) and took a trot down the now-very-familiar beachfront walkway to look for a tour operator to make our Ubud dreams come true.

Obviously, nobody was open yet.

We found a cleaner who was nice enough to guide us through a windy-windy route of back streets to “where da taxis are”.

Paydirt.

A taxi.

And by that I mean A Single Solitary Taxi.

But we only needed one. And he quoted us 450,000 Rupiah for a half day tour, so we hopped in and headed to Ubud.

The driver introduced himself as Wayan. This seemed quite coincidental as the business card we’d gotten from another tour desk the day before was also someone called Wayan. I asked if this was a common name. The driver explained the firstborn son is always named “Wayan” (meaning oldest), the second is “Made” (middle), the third is “Nyoman” (usually Man for short), and fourth is “Ketut” (often elided to Tut). If you have a fourth son, he’s “Wayan Balik” (Wayan again). So yes, Wayan is a very common name!

Our driver had asked us what we wanted to see on our daytrip and we’d listed the usual suspects: monkeys, temple, market etc… He suggested a detour to the Budsari coffee plantation. Seemed as good an excursion as any, so we approved the suggestion.

We were greeted at the door by a charming young hostess who guided us around a short looping pathway with live exhibits in the gardens on either side. She picked berries and leaves here and there as we went, skinning and splitting so that we could smell and guess. Coffee cherries, vanilla, lemongrass, ginseng, cinnamon… it’s quite hard to pin down the smells without the familiar visuals cues.

The path included a Luwak cage. Luwak coffee is famed to be “the most exotic, rich, smooth and excellent coffee from Bali”. It’s little wonder too, since the bean has such an unconventional journey from tree to cup! They pass through the Paradoxurus (that’s the scientific name, the locals call them Luwak). These little (furry and cute but apparently aggressive) creatures live in the trees and one of their food sources is the red coffee cherry. While the bean is in the chap’s belly it ferments, then exits the animal still intact through the digestive system. The beans are collected from the forest floor, dried, roasted and then ground and sifted by hand until it’s a fine powder. We checked and were assured that the beans are washed twice before being processed.

The tour included a sampling of all of the teas and coffees produced from the spoils of the vegetation we’d seen. Highlights were the mangosteen peel and lemongrass teas for me, Bali and Ginseng coffees for Christian… and finally finding a coffee I like: coconut coffee, which tastes like neither. It tastes like caramel!

He’d also asked what we wanted to buy at the market and when jewellery was on the list, he suggested a stop at Celuk, which is famous for its silversmiths.

He took us to a big company that included a tour on how jewellery to prime you for their ridiculously large, canteen-bright showroom with umpteen display cases glinting with pieces from the completely unimaginative to garish globs of misguided creativity. It was not what we were looking for – I wanted somewhere quaint and charming with original pieces – so we were in and out like a turnstile.

We then took a turn past the Temple. We were given sarongs to tie around our waists before being allowed to enter the sacred grounds. The funny thing is that most of the statues flanking entrances also have sarongs (always a black and white check fabric) placed around their waists, presumably also to preserve their modesty.

The temple complex was nice enough, but we’re still a bit temple fatigued from our past few holidays, so it was a quick 10 minute looksee, contrasting the other tourists who were poring over the exhibits and enjoying lengthy lectures from their guides.

Next stop was one we’d been really looking forward to: the Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary.

It’s really awesome. A self-guided walk along smoothly paved pathways (you have no idea how welcome that is after losing a layer of skin on the barefoot beach path walk yesterday) that wind through and past the highlights: main temple, dragon stairs, holy pool, holy spring temple, open stage, deer stable.

The thing we appreciated was that we expected monkey *exhibits*. It’s not. The monkeys live there, wild and free, and you wander through their home; ancient trees with Tarzan hanging vines arching the passageways that only slightly interrupt their habitat. The monkeys are quite used to people and wander among them, occasionally using a person as a post or plucking at an item of interest (which is why you are warned to remove glasses and anything not securely attached to your person).

There are stalls selling bananas – with the proceeds going to the maintenance of the sanctuary – which the monkeys will take right from your hand. There were loads of delighted tourists dangling peels or propping a banana strategically on a shoulder or lap to lure a monkey in for a photo.

For R30 entrance fee it’s well worth doing, and travellers with more sightseeing time (or appetite for temples) could easily entertain themselves there for double or triple the time that we did.

Wayan then took us to the village of Ubud. It had been a consideration for us to split our week between the beach at Sanur and then have a couple of nights inland as a breakaway in Ubud instead of going to the islands as we had done. Thank goodness we did as we did – Ubud is a very busy “sleepy little village”.

It has the expected single lane road, with lovely shops lining it and a really good market… but none of them are pedestrian streets and there is the added complication of cars alongside the squadrons of scooters. It’s mayhem.

We paid a quick visit to the obligatory temple and then focused our energy on jewellery shopping, eventually doing a fantastic job at a shiny little outlet called Kapal Laut (only to find that they have 3 branches in Sanur, so we could just as easily have shopped close to home. Doh!).

Wayan then suggested that we lunch at the rice paddy, which was a fabulous idea (especially since we hadn’t had a formal breakfast, opting to snack in the car to save time).

He took us to a big and bustling restaurant, where we got a front and centre table overlooking the tranquil rice paddy terraces so, with our back to everyone, it was quite peaceful.

We savaged a crispy duck – delicious! – and paired it with a juicy chicken curry. We certainly have eaten well this holiday!

The drive home was delayed somewhat by a traffic jam coming out of Ubud where a cremation ceremony was blocking the road. Apparently this is quite commonplace and, being the spiritual people they are, the drivers just grin and bear it. It seems hard work being a Hindu: all the shrines, offerings, obligatory decor and regalia, ceremonies and lots and lots of patience.

Every hotel we’d been at dotted banana leaves with petals and incense sticks about the place several times a day. The houses we drove past, no matter how humble, had murals moulded into their walls and sculpted into their cornices, statues in their entrances and shrines taking up most of their gardens. Traffic circles were stages for resplendent displays of mammoth stone statues illustrating religious tableau. It’s fascinating. Especially for the uninitiated.

We’d managed to tick off everything we wanted to see – and more! – on our short tour, so the plan was to spend the afternoon relaxing at the pool. Having had such luck with the hidden pool on Gili T, we decided to follow the signs to the smaller pool in our hotel complex. Hardly small by any means, it was a series of 3 pools, the largest being very deep at around 7ft, separated from the smaller, shallower two by a little waterfall tunnel.

Perfect to wile away a couple of hours.

Our original plan was to have a farewell seafood dinner in Jimbaran, the fisherman beach on the far side of the peninsula. The restaurants provide free transfers and the hotel had already recommended the one they considered best… but it seemed like a mission, so we walked down our road to the Cat & Fiddle Irish Pub instead.

It was a good decision and we enjoyed a relaxed evening, singing along to the cover band. And, for an Irish pub, they served a legit rendang (for Christian) and fisherman’s pie (like a cottage pie but creamed white fish instead of mince, for me).

A great last hoorah for an excellent stay in Bali!

Asia, Indonesia, Travelogue

Travelogue Indonesia 3: Lembongan

12 June 2015 cl@rks

LEMBONGAN

10-12 June 2015

Christian’s commitment to punctuality combined with Bali’s promise of delivering the predictably unpredictable made for quite a lengthy wait for the boat. Really not so bad though; we passed the half hour viewing the bright sunny midday from the comfort of the shade under the giant TRAWANGAN sign, with soft sand under our bare feet.

The cause of the delay became apparent as our boat docked. A rowdy group of American “Uncle Ed’s 50th Bday Tour” partygoers spilled out onto the beach. One quite literally, dropping her backpack into the sea while attempting an epically clumsy disembark. There was a tour leader with a flag on a stick (that gave away the theme of the group trip) running here and there, barking orders to the rebellious, issuing encouragement to the hapless and sweating up a storm while trying to herd her proverbial cats.

We headed right into the airconditioned cabin, still freshly reminded by the learning-the-hard-way sunburn that the open-air deck choice had taught our virgin skin en route from Padangbai. Christian’s shoulders were still angry red (leaving a very white skin chest vest) and my thighs and feet were still the shade of bright pink normally reserved for nail polish (and toenail polish at that!) so, factor 50 or no factor 50, we were avoiding continued exposure at all costs.

The boat-ride proved to be longer than we’d hoped, stopping twice on the journey to Padangbai, then requiring a change to a smaller boat as we arrived into a channel on Lembongan that must’ve been too shallow for our bigger fast boat.

All in all, it took 3 hours on the boat to get from Gili T to Lembongan, but 4 hours door-to-door as the harbour, of course, was on the exact opposite side of the island to where we needed to be. The boat tickets all include transfer service and this one was an bakkie convert with shadecloth roof and cushioned benches along the sides.

We were the last passengers to be dropped off so the journey fortuitously doubled as an island tour, which presented inland to be little more than a network of single lane once-tarred roads that spidervein from the apex down to beach access around the coastline. The roads were riddled with tourists on scooters, jiggling their merry way from one point to another, which wordlessly determined our mutual decision to not become part of this most misguided biker gang.

Having dropped our co-passengers at various fancy resorts, we were preparing for the disappointment of being, like them, placed clifftop with lovely views of the sea but no direct access to it. Fortunately, our fears were unfounded and we were deposited on the edge of the beach, where a porter from our hotel was waiting to escort us to our lodgings two doors down.

Lembongan Island while by no means big is much bigger than the Gili Islands we’d come from, so I’d agonised a bit on where we should position ourselves. The shortlist became the main length of beach that stretches from the left tip to more or less the centre of the island (as viewed from Bali mainland) versus a quiet cove adjacent to it, called Mushroom Bay. The name won me over and that’s how we found ourselves staying at Lambung Beach Huts right on the waters of Mushroom Beach.

The accommodation was superb. We had a beach hut wooden bungalow, two storeys with a (completely outdoor) bathroom and (partly outdoor) daybed patio beneath the upstairs loft bedroom with balcony overlooking the sea, through the frangipani and palms. Again with a 4-poster bed and fresh white linens. Idyllic!

With sunset rapidly approaching, we headed straight out to grab a sundowner. We walked the full stretch of our beach (200m or so) to assess our options and end up at the farthest hotel, the Mushroom Beach Bungalows, which won thanks to it’s sea-facing deck, infinity pool and pretty glowing lanterns easing in the nighttime.

We had a few Bintangs while soaking up the tranquility of the evening at the cove from our prime vantage point, and ended up staying for dinner.

Unable to decide between the dishes on our shortlist we ordered all 3 – which isn’t as gluttonous as it sounds as Indonesian portions are considerably smaller than ours – and were soon (very soon; nothing takes more than 10 minutes) languishing a snapper with salsa topping, red prawn curry and a seafood platter with calamari, tuna fillet and prawns. All beautifully fresh, no doubt from the day’s catch on the island.

Our hosts at the hotel had done a hard sell on their dinner offering when we checked in; their dinner kitchen presumably a big part of their trade since there was no pool to attract other guests during the day. We felt a bit bad as we return triumphant from a first evening and great dinner and proactively quelled any guilt we might’ve felt (or questions they might’ve posed) by ordering a couple of Bintangs to take back to our balcony as nightcaps.

THURSDAY

Breakfast at the hotel was a casual affair, under the shaded thatch with beachsand floor. The food was excellent though, with freshly squeezed orange juice, toast with eggs of any preference… and bacon! Really good bacon too, sort of streaky rashers with a lovely generous length of fat like back bacon – truly best of both!

We’d already decided the day would be a relaxed beachy one, but figured we’d best sate the curiosity on what comprised our little neck of the woods. We took a walk up the road – or maybe that should read “The Road” since there was only one – and saw that there was not much to see.

Lots of construction going on; presumably new villas and lodges based on signage and foundations. Building is a very manual process and largely undisciplined from what we could see. Can’t blame them really, being 11am and hot as Hades! (And this is technically winter, Bali being 8 degrees south of the Equator).

Confident that we’d “supervised” enough, we assessed the beachfront options and chose to fritter away the day at the Sedag Resort, mostly because of the novelty of finding our own private infinity pool. Terraced just below the main pool, our little slice of paradise had a ledge just big enough for our 2 loungers and an umbrella, and a pool about twice the size of our own at home but only a metre deep… and spilling over into the bay below. Perfect view of everything; perfect getaway from everyone. And the perfect spot for Christian to propose; I said ‘yes’!

The afternoon drew to a close with us returning to our bungalow at sunset for sundowners on our balcony. All very relaxing.

Having enjoyed our 3-between-2 ordering the night before, we again exercised the right not to have to choose and split a beef rendang stew, chicken curry and a seafood platter that included calamari stuffed with tuna – the best thing I have tasted in as long as I can remember! Mental note to self to try and make tuna meatballs on returning home!

…which was approaching all too soon.

We had already arranged (with our front desk) our boat tickets for the following morning to fetch us directly from Mushroom Beach to return us to the mainland for the last leg of the Bali itinerary, in Sanur. Slow island life sure goes by faster than you want it to!

Asia, Indonesia, Travelogue

Travelogue Bali 2: Gili Trawangan

10 June 2015 cl@rks

GILI TRAWANGAN

08-10 June 2015

After a decadently long and delicious slumber in Padangbai, we finally arose with half an hour to pick-up time (the transfer to the port for the fast boat to Gili T). Fortunately, both dressing and packing were lighting-quick jobs, so we were out the door minutes later.

It had literally just started to rain as we were locking up our suite so, grateful for our ultralight beach holiday packing, we grabbed our suitcases and made a mad dash across the pool terrace. Sopping from the sprint in the tropical squall, we sat down to peruse the breakfast menu… as the rain stopped. We’d managed to get caught end-to-end in the only-a-minute-long downpour. That has to be lucky, like rain on your wedding day!

Breakfast was a simple offering of melons (that I didn’t eat, thanks Nordic Ice), egg toastie (very welcome), black tea for me (will try and get used to that) and coffee for Christian (the type that leaves a black slick down the cup and a silt layer on the bottom; he seemed to like it).

We were ready and waiting in the reception at 10, as instructed, and when the transfer driver hadn’t arrived by 10.15 we asked the reception to call them. The receptionist seemed puzzled by our request and kept pointing at the wall clock… which had stopped… and showed 9.45. It took some convincing to get them to call, and the verdict was “on their way”. Obviously Bali Time works the same as ours back home.

Minutes later our transfer arrived.

An ancient wrinkly man on a Vespa.

For the 2 of us and our suitcases.

He tried to gesture that he’d take us one at a time (with a suitcase)… but we showed him the Yellow Pages, communicating that we would rather walk. The compromise was that we would hoof it and he would take the bags.

So, with that, we walked from our hotel at the end of the beach, along the harbour, all the way to the other far end of town: 300 metres and 5 minutes later, were at the Ticket Office collecting our boarding passes, still well in time for our 10.30 boarding (for the fast boat that ended up being 20 minutes late. Bali Time strikes again!)

We had bought the full Padangbai – Gili Trawangan – Lembongan – Sanur ticket all in one go, so were relieved when the boat ride was comfortable (and quick) enough. We sat on the flat rooftop to enjoy the view in the pleasant cool of the overcast morning, eavesdropping on the conversations around us for entertainment.

On arrival in Gili Trawangan, we were surprised to see a porter awaiting us, welcome sign ‘n all. Who knows how long he’d been waiting there seeing as I’d not told the hotel where we’d be coming from for them even to hedge their bets on multiple boat arrival times per origin.

He led us across (what we were to discover was) the main road (that runs along the beachfront all the way around the island) and down a side street. A short 45 metres (according to the signage) later, we arrived at Secret Garden 2. Our accommodation was quite true to the pictures online – roomy wooden A-frame bungalow, decorated to within an inch of its life with mammoth four-poster bed with draped mosquito netting taking up most of it, and elaborate framed painting of Buddha on the black and white speckled feature wall and enormous mural of the caricature-ish Indian dancers with gold spot-colour accents and a heavy wooden frame above the full length of the head of the bed, that would surely kill – or at least maim – us in our sleep should it choose to fall.

Our bathroom was interesting, accessed from the main room through a clear glass sliding door, exposing it to have a shoulder height wall and open air in the triangle of the A-frame. I’d booked us upstairs hoping that we’d be able to see the sea from our entrance balcony… but that was a fail since we’re facing away from the sea, so have a lovely view of the homestays below and behind, and a construction site for another building of condos directly opposite.

The flatscreen TV bragged about in the ad must’ve been taken really close up as it’s the tiniest cutest TV you ever have seen! The screen is only just bigger than Christian’s tablet (but with it all the way across the room, it’s a challenge for even the eagle-eyed!) A nice touch to include not only a DVD player but a sleeve of DVDs (movies and series) as well.

We didn’t come to Gili Trawangan to watch TV though, so we set about our adventuring post haste. My One Thing I wanted for our stay here was to circumnavigate the island (estimated at 8km from what we’d read), so we started with that. Back to the main road and taking a left. The main town section had almost a double lane (unmarked, with no clear indication from travellers as to whether there was a right or wrong side in either direction); the rest was all a single lane shared, at times quite noisily, by its users.

There are no cars or motorbikes (thankfully, because Padangbai was quite “busy” with its 2-wheel mavericks), just lots of horse-drawn carriages (all with jingling bells; the reason why the holiday song snippet stuck in my head was “… lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with you!”) and tourists on bicycles (who clearly don’t ride at home, so wobble and panic about the place), sharing the path with lots of barefooted, bare-chested and often barely aware pedestrians, so it’s chaos.

We managed the full island lap in what would have been just under 2 hours if we hadn’t stopped at The Exile: a most excellent beachfront pub and restaurant, where we sampled bone-chillingly cold Bintangs (served in an enormous bottle somewhere between a quart and a litre, but unmarked so it’s a mystery) and marvelled at the beautiful water that graded from turquoise at the shoreline to deep navy blue on the horizon, broken only by the tourists lounging on the hammocks and sitting on the swings installed in the shallower waters for their amusement.

On our way back into town we spotted a sign for a “hidden pool bar” which was an irresistible allure (completely overshadowing the same-size “residents only” sign beneath it). The pool was gorgeous: crystal clear, warm as a bath with a swim-up sunken bar with submerged cocktail seats… and half-price cocktails to boot! With that we frittered away the sunset hours in complete bliss. Longest I’ve swum in can’t remember how long!

Celebrating our little find, we vowed to return in the morning for the aqua-biking (underwater exercise bikes) workout session, thinking that exercise in this environment could only be a pleasure and, at 9am, surely easily possible.

We celebrated our great decision-making with a post-sundowner at Tir Na Nog, “the biggest Irish bar on the smallest island in the world”, where we had a Guinness (in a bottle, unusual for us) and logged it on our Index. We also got an invite to quiz night (1 million Rupiah bar tab up for grabs!) the following evening. Game on!

Delighted at how the day had turned out, we were blind-sided by an Indian restaurant that cast aside all good intentions to eat only local food. It was a good call with a very satisfying lamb vindaloo and butter chicken to share, served with 2 types of rice and peculiar round crispy naan bread. Very nice.

Last mission was to source a snorkelling trip for the following day, which we did with ease since everything was still open and the tour guides still pedalling a fine trade well into the night from the tourists spilling out from all the restaurants and bars. R100 each for a 10-3, 3 island snorkelling excursion? Bargain!

TUESDAY

I woke up (with holiday hair so exuberant that it may preclude me from further holiday pics) at 9.15, so we’d completely missed our Hidden Pool workout (phew!)

… and we set off for breakfast.

The hotel gave us vouchers for a beachside restaurant called Egoiste. A lot more lush than we were expecting from a free breakfast, thrown in with such economy accommodation, we were treated to 2 eggs on 2 toasts with a delicious pineapple smoothie, served in a large parfait glass with a bendy straw. Delicious – and a good refuel for the day’s adventure.

It’s great that town is one main road, as we simply walked back in the direction we’d come from the previous night until things started looking familiar and then hunted the tour office from the name on the booking stub. Easy peasy and we were soon equipped with fins, masks and snorkels and off to the boat, the Coral Voice.

The boat trip was a great decision! The Gili collection of islands consists of ours – the biggest, Gili Trawangan, the farthest from Lombok (the “mainland” island; we’re not in Bali anymore) – then Gili Meno in the middle and Gili Air closest to Lombok. The islands get more chilled as you get closer to Lombok. You can see Gili Meno from Gili Trawangan, but it obscures Gili Air, that in turn obscures Lombok, with its lovely hilly coastal facade. It is cool that each island has a horizon view of its neighbours.

Our boat trip took us first down the coastline of our own Gili Trawangan, where we were deposited in a serene azure patch of ocean with visibility easily 30-40 metres. I don’t know anything about fish, but the schools were plentiful, colourful and energetically weaving in and around the coral bed so there was plenty to watch!

After half an hour we were called back to the boat to transfer to Gili Meno where the skipper jumped into the water and took us on a guided snorkel, pointing out things of interest and guiding us to where turtles swam beneath and jellyfish-looking things swam between us.

We were then off to Gili Air, where we were again given a half hour to paddle about and admire the under- and above-water sights. The boat moored on the shore so we could grab some lunch at one of the beachside eateries. We delved into local cuisine with a capcay (sweet and sour veg with seafood) and ayam pelecing (spicy chicken), both served with rice and both very tasty.

The food was served very quickly, so we still had some time to spare on our lunch break to have a wander down the main road on Gili Air. Much quieter and more laid back; far less people, narrower road, no horsecarts… but still loads of restaurants and bars, so hardly remote in the strict sense of the word.

By the time we got home to our own Gili it was after 3pm. That was an incredible excursion for 100 SA Ronds each!

Having been told there is only one boat a day from Gili Trawangan to Lembongan (our next stop), we did the wise thing and took our tickets to the boat company office to do pre- check-in and secure our places for the next day. Reassuringly, they already had our names on the list so it was a 2 minute process.

Sight-seeing and admin done for the day, we retired to our Hidden Pool at Villa Ombak for sundowners.

As nice as all our wallowing in the sea and pool had been, a shower was very welcome after the long day. As the central part of our open plan, open air bathroom, the outsized showerhead could sadly only be described as a “rain shower” if it were actually raining! Really dismal water pressure! Fortunately, we were in no hurry, so showering became as laidback and leisurely as an excursion all in itself.

The plan for the evening was the quiz night at Tir Na Nog, leaving an hour and a half for dinner. We’d become quite accustomed to the layout of town by now… and done considerable deliberation on our back and forths as to where to sample an authentic Indonesian meal. It had taken quite a bit of willpower not to participate in the Irish Pub’s Mexican Fiesta buffet (R90, including a Bintang).

We ended up back at Egoiste, where we’d had breakfast, at a stunning table on the beachfront. We had a Mie Goreng (like Nasi Goreng, but noodles instead of rice) and Rendang (lightly spiced beef stew). Both devine – worth another order for sure!

The quiz night was well-supported, held across the road from the beach front bar in a big open-air hall structure extension to the restaurant. We did very well initially, being in tie for 1st place at halftime. Sadly though, Round 4 was all about Indonesia… a subject which we (very apparently) know nothing about. With a 0/8 for that section, we slid to 4th place. We managed to gain some ground back on the last round and ended in a very respectable tie for 2nd place. So, we didn’t walk away with the 1 million Rupiah bar tab first place prize – thankfully!!

We’d have had no trouble finding a welcoming recipient for our spoils had we won the tab and wanted to cede it to someone. The pub, like the whole street, was buzzing. Lots of pubs had live music and there were more than enough party-people to ensure that no band went lonely. It’s a great hair-down, shoes-off town – and we were definitely among the oldest people!

It’s been equally weird not seeing a single Saffa here and seeing so many young (twenty-something, mostly Australian, but healthy portions of American and Brit) tourists staying in the flash resorts, normally full to bursting with aged Germans. Illustrates the combination of rustic, party appeal with cheap island lifestyle for the world’s stronger currencies. Drinking here is more expensive than at home, but with eating considerably cheaper and transport and excursions dirt cheap, what is a reasonably priced holiday for us must be a steal for them! Especially the Australians since Indonesia is on their doorstep so am sure they benefit from Asian budget airline prices too.

WEDNESDAY

We had good intentions for our last morning – circumnavigating Gili Trawangan (*again*) on bicycle.

I must admit that we may very well have overslept and missed it, had it not been for the Muslims. Mosques are the Dachshund puppies of places of worship. While a church might rouse you momentarily with clangs or chimes, mosques are relentless with all that wailing! Our luck, our bungalow was spitting distance from a very punctual, very enthusiastic mosque.

We were told that the cycle would take an hour and a half, we budgeted an hour and only took 45 minutes… even with Christian’s wobbly seat and puncture 10 minutes in. It was a far less white-knuckle ride than the one in Amsterdam last year but, then again, it was emptier (9am is very early for the late night culture) and flatter (literally at sea level, obviously)… and not to say that it wasn’t hair-raising for every one of the oncoming pedestrians caught deer in my headlights and for me with every oncoming horsecart (with their cheerful jingling sounding quite macabre).

Worked up quite a hunger for brekkie, which made the Egoiste’s already-excellent eggs on toast most appreciated. I have also discovered that I might be a fruit-drinker, after being a vocally averse fruit-eater my whole life. The fresh blended banana juice was every bit as yummy – and every bit as “nothing but fruit” – as the pineapple one had been the previous day, neither of which I would ever have ordered under normal circumstances.

Motivated by the restart of the James Blunt CD on repeat, we took a last walk along the beautiful beach of Gili Trawangan, back to Secret Garden 2 for a last jump in the shower(room) and off to the jetty for the next installment of Bali Adventure 2015 in Sanur.

Asia, Indonesia, Travelogue

Travelogue Bali 1: Padangbai

8 June 2015 cl@rks

PADANGBAI

07 June 2015

We could not have picked a better time to take our winter break. En route to work, in the dark, on the morning of our travel, the pretty little blue snowflake icon on the car digital dashboard (depicting a dip below 3 degrees) did nothing to warm my heart, let alone thaw my numb toes. It was, not to be dramatic, the coldest day in the world.

A day that flew though in the usual mad dash to the finish line. It was a relief to sink into the outsized wingback chair at the Shongolo lounge – with an enormous glass of Pinotage and a plateful of Stroganoff – knowing that Out Of Offices were activated, dogs were all safely at their respective Holiday Camps, car was valet-parked and baggage was checked. Our biggest challenges for the next 24 hours were to choose channels, decide between chicken and beef (with the odd fish curveball, no doubt) and to try and get some – but not too much – rest on the flights to optimise our acclimation on The Other Side.

It’s a real “planes, trains and automobiles” to get to Bali (doing it our way, that is). The usual Joburg to Dubai hop was a well-practiced cinch, the transit skip a great opportunity to catch up on some steps (almost 6000 end-to-end in our Terminal, celebrated with extortionate R151 pints at the Heineken Bar in Dubai Airport) and the 7,5 hour jump to Jakarta quite painless, thanks to Big Bang Theory Season 8 and Brooklyn Nine Nine Season 2 boxsets on Emirates‘s unbeatable entertainment system.

Arriving in Jakarta, we were greeted by a slightly shabby but spotless Terminal. It was the understated utilitarian set-up we’d expected… but what we didn’t expect was the magnitude of the airport complex. Landing at 11pm and flying out again the next morning at 10am, I’d booked us into the Jakarta Airport Hotel, conveniently situated (as all the online literature said) right in Terminal 1.

Typically though, we’d flown into Terminal 2 and were to fly out of Terminal 3 the next day. And the terminals are spread generously over the airport complex, requiring a (fantasy) shuttle bus (which we gave 20 minutes of doubt’s benefit) or a taxi (a bargain at R40 for the convenience, especially since I was still in my thermal vest and approaching expiration at a rate far quicker than the fantasy shuttle’s alleged arrival).

Our hotel, the d’Prima, was pleasant and our room small but perfect for what we needed: barely enough width for suitcases (big but empty, at an unprecedented 10kg Travel Light Record each) on either side of the big, white, poofy-pillowed, silky-cotton-sheeted, perfectly-horizontal, no-belt-buckled bed; airconditioned heaven, it was. And Christian, a bath of perspiration from the stifling humidity, was thrilled to have a long, cool shower.

The hotel stay included breakfast. We weren’t expecting much since our induction included a vague wave toward a coffee bar counter and the instruction that breakfast is “only” served between 4 and 10am.

We were pleasantly surprised the next morning when we were told the breakfast du jour (and probably every jour actually) was a roti We expected the cheese-filled pancake sort of thing we’d had in Sri Lanka. It was nothing of the sort – and nothing like we’d have called a roti. A warm bun with a cover layer that looked and tasted like a soft fortune cookie, with something sweet melted in the centre that must’ve been syrup-inspired because the overall flavour was like a waffle or one of those steam puddings you have to make in a double-boiler so the syrupy sauce runs down the outside when you turn them out of the pot. It looked plain and I was expecting it to need condiments to jazz it up… but it was so soft, warm and moist that the whole thing was gone before I could really bed down the flavour and its genius contributors. Mental note to try those again to get a handle on them properly.

Breakfast came with tea and coffee, both served black as standard and requiring me to ask for milk for my tea. The breakfast bar attendant seemed surprised by my request, but complied. Mental note also to try tea black and see if the local brew somehow justifies the absence of dairy.

Catching a taxi to the (correct) Terminal was easy. All we had to do was step out of the hotel and we had drivers flock to us.

The flight check-in was equally simple with a very uncluttered Terminal thanks to the banks of machines outside where passengers could check themselves in, print their own boarding passes and even print their own luggage tags. And everybody actually does it. At home we seems to have a very laggard attitude to new technologies, queuing for habit’s sake and wordlessly committing to progress “next time”.

By stark contrast to the already-29-degrees morning weather, the plane was bloody freezing! Christian loved it, of course, (already glistening from the short trot across the runway to alight the plane) and I fear that hour and a half onboard Air Asia Refrigeration might rank as one of the highlights of his holiday for him.

I appeased his reintroduction to Outside with a “Welcome to Bali” Burger King lunch (still at the airport) and joked that I was going to submit the tillslip with my tax return since it said R149,000 at the bottom. We’re going to spend like millionaires this holiday!!

It was easy to get a taxi; again, stand and let the drivers come to you. R400 for a 2 hour transfer down the coast to Padang Bai? Bargain!

The drive itself was interesting too. The airport isn’t actually in Denpasar, but in Kuta. We’d been advised not to stay in Kuta (on our return to the mainland at the end of our itinerary) because it’s too hectic and touristy… and this advice rang true in just the small bit of it we saw on our evac route. We did drive past Sanur Beach, where we would be staying later in the itinerary, and saw Lambongan Island distant on the horizon, which made me a bit giddy from excitement, seeing all the topography from my flat online planning take shape before my very eyes! And the aircon in the car was blasting so Christian was happy too.

The transfer was slow going, mostly because of single carriageway and the type of traffic rather than the amount. It gave time to take in the sights – very tropical with lots and lots of frangipani and palm trees, and small square pagoda-style buildings close to the road.

Bali is *very* Hindu so the houses and gardens all have adornments and intricate statues that keep the eye busier than this flash tour does justice. Although maybe “flash” is an overstatement as at one point a hotel salesman pulled up on his Vespa alongside our driver, knocked on the window and a proceeded to hard sell… all at 40km per hour!

First stop in “town” was to get our boat tickets sorted for our island-hopping (starting with Gili Trawangan), more by our driver’s insistence than our request, so he presumably gets a kickback. Happily so, since it was quick and easy to sort the lot and that concluded the admin for this holiday, especially since the boat ticket included door-to-door transfers to the port the next morning.

The driver then dropped us at our Padangbai home, a charming place at the end of the waterfront called Beji Bay. It exceeded expectations from the sweet open-air reception, through the gardens and pool area to our roomy suite!

Eager to explore, we headed straight out and hit a right to “town”. We traversed the harbour and concentric inland areas of activity to get a lay of the land (and do some market shopping, for a Bintang vest for Christian and some swim shorts for me), and then passed our resort to go up the hill to explore the resort and temple.

Confident we’d done the small town justice, we resigned to our pool. Well, pools, considering it was an infinity jacuzzi into a big pool into a paddle pool. We had the place to ourselves, which was great for a splash around and relax.

Next activity had been pre-decided early on. We’d spotted a cocktail bar with an appealing happy hour from 5-7 that reminded us of the place in Mauritius that had served us so well. So that’s what we did!

The whole waterfront strip was quite quiet, but at least Padangbai Bay Resort had some lads at the bar, some ladies on the terrace and some divers preparing for their night dive. Weirdly, the Bintang only comes in 300ml or 700ml… so we worked our way through the large ones as the waiters refreshed our complimentary popcorn. It was only when the bill came and there was a 21% mandatory service charge that we realised why the staff was so attentive!

From there we surveyed the eating options in an effort to find somewhere both atmospheric and appealing. Instead, we found Molly’s… and had to stop in for the sake of homage to Christian’s local at home, Molly Malone’s.

By then, the dinner crowd had started moving in and we found ourselves at the upstairs front-and-centre harbour front restaurant (Kerti’s) that Christian had liked from the start. Unable to decide, we ended up ordering the marlin, tuna and prawns to share… a bargain at R45 per main course dish, so why choose?! All delicious, and quite different to the way they’d have been prepared and presented at home, with a tasty spicy brothy gravy.

We’d obviously made the right choice in eatery as most of the people we’d noticed passing had ended up moving through while we were there. Winning!

Asia, Japan, Travelogue

Travelogue Japan 4: Kyoto

11 January 2015 cl@rks

KYOTO

07-11 January 2015

While there wasn’t much pressure to catch any specific train since we’d pre-bought 7-day rail passes, the 1,2km trek in the snow with all our luggage was decidedly unappealing so the commitment came in pre-arranging the transport to the station. Our host in Yuzawa, Gabriel, had thus kindly booked 2 taxis to fetch us on the morning of departure to get us to the Echigo Yuzawa station in time for our planned 09h16 train.

The whole exercise went off seamlessly and we were soon (literally) bulleting off back to Tokyo, from where we would connect to Kyoto (since there are no bullet trains any more direct for our flight path).

Tokyo Station is HUGE. Since we had an hour between trains, we had a wander around and even surfaced to street level to get our bearings. The shops in the station are predictably mostly food and travel supplies, although as with everywhere else it wasn’t food you’d readily recognise so there was lots to pore over.

We bought echiben for the journey: beautifully prepared and presented lunch boxes composed of a variety of elements that are sold at stations and on the trains. With 20 or more options at our stall alone, we were spoilt for choice.

The one we eventually chose was divided into 2 compartments. The left had 2 rashers on a bed of sticky rice covered in light egg shavings. The right had hire katsu (like pork schnitzel) and battered beef meatballs accompanied by little cupcake cups respectively housing a floret of broccoli, a floret of cauliflower, pickled cabbage and a small portion of spaghetti bolognaise decorated with fresh peppers. It is all so pretty that opening the box feels more like opening a present than a lunchbox!

On arrival in Kyoto we were spared the usual game of “where in the world are we?!” by our Airbnb host’s precise and accurate directions (which had been automatically delivered alongside our travel itinerary on confirmation of our booking – Airbnb is great!).

It was not even a 5 minute walk from the station to our house (for the next 4 nights) and it was easy to navigate even with our bags even though our road has no pavements thanks to Kyoto’s ingenious road markings, with painted lanes for pedestrians on the outer edges, bicycle lanes next and a single car lane in the middle. The Japanese people are so compliant and obedient that everyone sticks to where they’re supposed to be and it’s a wonderful experience for all concerned!

Our landlord, Jesse, was at the house when we got there and was really friendly and helpful and a wealth of advice on what to do and where to go. Fortunately, his suggestions matched the majority of items on our existing Awesome Detailed Itinerary and the new additions fitted in easily with our plans.

The house itself was incredible. A 3 bedroom with 2 Western double beds in one room upstairs and easily space for 4 or more futons in the other 2 rooms, 1 upstairs and the other off the entrance hall downstairs. We had a cosy living room with tiny couch and a few low rattan button stools around a little coffee table, modcon iPod deck and a sliding door leading onto a charming tiny zen garden.

The main bathroom was off the lounge, cleverly with the basin area doored off from the bath / shower room (which wasn’t much taller than me and housed a wall-mounted handshower and weird little 1m x 1m zinc knee-deep sunken bath) so we’d be able to get ready in the mornings in tandem. The loo was off the entrance hall where we’d come in, that was big enough to house a dining room table and be the storage area for the bicycles that came with the rental.

Our kitchen was little more than a narrow passage that ran from the front door to the bathroom alongside the dining room and lounge. It wasn’t wide enough to have two people pass each other!

First item on the gameplan was Geisha-spotting. We’d read that Gion was the place, but Jesse narrowed our search to a small alleyway just before the river. Our house was so conveniently located that it was a “left turn along the main shopping street until a left into the alley before the river; if you get to the river, you’ve gone too far.”

True’s nuts we spotted a Geisha within minutes of meandering in the assigned spot! Truth be told, we spotted one Geisha, followed her and saw her exchange words with another coming directly towards us… and got a (surreptitious) photo of her as she passed! Granted, she looks like a ghostly blur in the background, but still…

Excited from our Supreme Touristing, we set about finding a dinner spot. Easier said than done with literally hundreds of restaurants to choose from – and all looking equally unattractive! We eventually homed in on a beef and leek restaurant for dinner. We had the special, which was exactly that! A rice bowl with tender strips of beef and leek, so full of distinct flavours.

Since our house was so comfortable, we were keen to initiate it so walked back along the main road, Shijo Dori, doing some window-shopping en route. The area is very upmarket and picture-perfect with wide covered pavements and uniform illuminated name boxes outside each store. The city has gone to a lot of trouble to create ambiance, decorating the eaves of the pavement roof with stylish banners and lanterns. They also pipe music onto the streets (plinky-plonky classical Japanese).

Our trusty 7Eleven provided us with beer and snacks for the night and breakfast supplies for the morning (which promised to be complicated to maintain since bread came in 6 slices to a pack, cheese 7 and ham 8).

Thursday was allocated to walking-touring and sightseeing.

Our route took us first to Higashi Honganji, the mother temple of Shin Buddhism, one of the largest Buddhist denominations in Japan. The Founder’s Hall is one of the largest wooden constructions in the world (at 76x58x38 metres with 175,967 roof tiles, 927 tatami mats and 90 pillars!) and was renovated in 2011 for the 750th memorial service of the founder, Shinran. The temple complex is big and awesome and was a good induction to Kyoto, noted for being Japan’s cultural hub.

Nijo Castle was next on the list and 600 Yen (R60) gave us access to the compound to view the exhibits in its 2 palaces, various support buildings and expansive gardens.

The castle was built in 1603 as the Kyoto residence of the first Tokugawa Shogun (bearing in mind Kyoto used to be the capital of Japan). It is one of the finest examples of the early Edo period and Monoyama culture in Japan because of the style of its building designs, lavish paintings and carvings that Iemetsu generously commissioned. In 1867 the castle the castle became the property of the Imperial family, who donated it to the City of Kyoto in 1939, whereupon it was renamed Nijo-jo (Nijo Castle).

By contrast, lunch was a quick and efficient affair at a diner we walked in to by chance where you order from a vending machine that issues a little ticket which you present to the server who was stationed on the inside of the u-shaped seating counter.

The food was served super-quickly but was, as always in Japan, excellent quality and very tasty. Even this cheap and cheerful diner served us complimentary tea and a small bowl of soup on arrival – the Japanese are supremely hospitable! Unbelievable that again the whole restaurant was run by one person in the kitchen and one server – and there’s still enough time for the little extras, sincere smiles and all the please and thank-yous that come with any exchange in Japanese.

Vowing to try another vending machine diner within the remainder of the trip, we set off to see how the other half lives, at the Imperial Palace.

The complex is a stately affair with looong wiiiide gravel driveway leading up to the Palace gates. That were shut. Tight. Fail.

Still, the gardens and water features were nice. And we ticked another sight off our list.

We took a long walk along the Kamo River, me mostly entertaining myself with Japan’s most prevalent soundtrack: traffic light signals. The Japanese government seems to have put a lot of thought into the less fortunate by incorporating ridged tiles into their pavements. Striped tiles run along the centre of the pavement for general walking in a straight line and dotted tiles indicate where there’s an intersection to turn off the path (eg at a traffic light mid-block) or where the pavement ends (eg at an intersection).

They combine these tactile signals with audio ones at traffic lights, with a different tone for east-west crossing versus north-south and different sets of tones for each intersection. Thus, a blind person would presumably be able to track their journey using the audio tones instead of road signs (of which there are precious few, mind you). The result for the sighted tourist is a great game of “bing-bong, bing-bong”, “doodooladoo” and my favourite “pew, pew-pew!” which may very possibly have made a long walk feel longer for my comrades! 😀

Our route deposited us at a beautiful temple and pagoda in Gion. This must be a local sight of popularity too since there were several couples dressed in traditional regalia, slip-slopping (with socks!) about in their kimonos and shogun robes, taking lots of photos of themselves. The kimonos are mostly quite spectacular and the shogun outfits look quite comfortable being multi-layered loose-fitting robes… but it’s a big victory for tradition that they’ve retained the slops and socks part of the get-up.

The socks all seem to be the same: white, mitten-style with a pocket for the big toe and another bigger pocket for the other 4 and they seem to be sewn from cotton rather than knitted. The men’s slops – tatami-style straw ones with fabric thong – look comfy enough, but the ladies ones all seem to be misshapen and ill-fitting. They narrow at the front, so almost everyone has foot overflow on both sides and the thong seems impractically tight so the wearer is constantly shuffling to get into and stay in the shoe. We surmised that this was tactical to maintain the ladies’ weak and vulnerable facade, shuffling along with tiny little steps. I thought it might force me to pull a Malory and demand to be carried everywhere!

En route back from Gion, we did see our 3rd Geisha. She was crossing the bridge across from us and turned down the same little alley Jesse had told us about. He obviously really knows his stuff!

Apparently you can still hire a Geisha to come and entertain you, but it costs a small fortune. Then she pitches up just after dusk, with a little beautifully wrapped gift and sings for you or recites poetry or some other artisanal song and dance. Not one for our itinerary or budget!

Since we’d planned a daytrip to Hiroshima leaving early the next day, we foraged for dinner at our trusty 7Eleven and Christian finally got to try a Japanese curry and rice (tasty but unremarkable).

SATURDAY

On returning from our Hiroshima daytrip, we were surprised by Lixi and RoRo with some quality sake and nibbly bits of melt-in-your-mouth-fresh crusty French loaf with genuine Wagyu beef (which is the same as Kobe beef but not necessarily from Kobe. Qualifying as Kobe beef requires parentage and grandparentage on both sides to be from Kobe for the sacrificial cow to qualify). Lix lightly fried the beef and it was everything it’s been made out to be – soft as butter and full of flavour!

They had sourced the goods from a local premium food market, which they told us was the mecca of all things imbibable and promised to show us the next day.

Our plan for the evening was to find a place that Jesse had recommended because it’s a bottle store by day, but at closing time they wheel in some keg barrels to act as tables and serve directly from the shelves and fridges. The old lady owner even tallies up your bill using an abacus, which is a nice touch!

We found the place, but got turned away because it was too full, so spent the evening at the wine bar across the road instead, people-watching and keeping an eye on a Japanese game show that had girls competing ferociously in a combination of events that would fit anywhere between Pop Idol and a toddler’s birthday party.

SUNDAY

On the advice of one of my friends back home, we spent our last day at Arashiyama, a little suburb out west of Kyoto in the Sagano district.

What a great decision!

Our Pasmo passes got us there quickly and cheaply and deposited us in a charming sleepy little town that had a buzz of activity on the main drag from the station to the town’s famous wooden bridge.

The main attractions – besides the bridge, of course – were a temple / gardens combo and a bamboo forest. Both sounded too challenging on an empty stomach so we sourced donburi for motivation. Donburi is a bowl of rice and beef strips with a partially cooked fried egg on top that completes cooking in the bowl from the heat of the rice alone. We operated on instinct with when to break the yolk and when to fold the egg into the rice and seemed to do quite well, turning the gelatinous beginnings into a yummy mess quite quickly. The table had the traditional spice block and a sprinkle of the sesame and chilli salt on top made for a pretty and zesty overall effect.

Even though everything in the town was very close, we managed to get lured in by the shops and spent an hour or 2 happily wandering in and out of the shops, inspecting knick-knacks and buying gifts and souvenirs.

The temple and gardens are quite lovely.

Tenryi-ju was established in 1339 on the grounds of a temple that had been there since the 9th century. The temple has been ravaged by fires 8 times in its existence, most recently in 1864, but each time the gardens survived, maintaining the 14th century ambiance and making it one of the oldest gardens in Japan.

On our way from the temple to the Bamboo Path, we stopped to sample another local delicacy – croquettes! Delicious crunchy potato with beefy bits in it. Mmmmm! But then again, I never have met a croquette that I didn’t like.

We’d been told that there is a quaint old train that returns to Kyoto… we ended up catching it quite by accident. Took an “alternate route” back to the station we’d arrived at and ended up encountering the old train at another station we hadn’t even been looking for. Bonus that it took our Pasmo cards AND the end of the line was our Shijo station so we wouldn’t have to even change trains at Kyoto as we’d had to on the way out.

Double bonus was that our station has an exit right into Daimura, the Wagyu store.

More accurately, it is an emporium of delightful things and as we blissfully wandered the aisles of chocolates, baked goods, meat produce and liquors both average and special occasion, servers offered us tastes of this and bites of that.

There are no words to describe the place with any justice: Premium chocolatiers and patissieres displaying perfect wares and packing each purchase as meticulously and beautifully as a gift for a favourite child’s milestone birthday. Beautiful clinical butchery with marbled wagyu steaks carved and displayed elegantly in glass cases. Alcoves of perfectly-lit sake so that just buying it is a romantic experience. Fresh produce like you’ve never seen before – apples the size of melons and fist-sized strawberries, all elegantly displayed.

A real feast for the eyes if nothing else.

We bought wagyu and French loaf just like the night before, but triple the quantity and with an (R18 massive) onion to sautée alongside. Christian treated us to jamon and cheese tapas for starters.

Feeling as lush as the massaged cows that had provided our meal, we languished in an amazing meal in super-comfy digs with amazing friends for the last night of a spectacular holiday.

Asia, Japan, Travelogue

Travelogue Japan 1: Tokyo (Part 3)

3 January 2015 cl@rks

TOKYO (Part 3)

02 January 2015

Jetlag had set in and all of us were rustling and stirring by 4am. Way too early to do anything constructive in Tokyo, so everyone stayed nestled in our cosy futons with Kindles, phones and tablets for entertainment, dozing on and off until 7.30.

Our shower rotation was less traumatic than anticipated and actually helped prevent our pinhead living area from becoming too crowded (with our mountain of electronics on chargers, let alone our 5 Western bodies).

RoRo whipped us up some heavenly scrambled eggs for a light brekkie and we hit the road just after 9 – almost an hour ahead of schedule as per the mega-itinerary.

The roads were quiet and nothing was open yet – a surprise to us seeing as we’d only yet surfaced into the Tokyo afternoon.

We’d plotted and planned the day’s itinerary the previous evening (at – yet another – Hub pub) while we were out, so we had a good idea of what we wanted to do and how to get there. We did however change course on our first stop, Kappabashi, which is famous for being where all the plastic food displays (commonly found outside most restaurants to illustrate their menu) are made. Challenge was that we didn’t know *exactly* where to go and feared getting disheartened if the first sight was a wild goose chase.

Directions in Tokyo are fun at the best of times with a complicated address notation system thanks largely to buildings having been numbered as they were built, rather than having being in a series. This resulted in an awkward retro-fitted address format allocating 3 numbers to each address: block, building, residence. For example, the address for our digs was 3-4-7 Yanaka, Taito.

We caught the Asakusa Line to Higashi-ginza where Exit 3 surfaced us directly outside the Kazibuka-za Kabuki Theatre. Our plan was to get short tickets, which allow access for a single act. Unfortunately, it would appear that half of Tokyo (plentiful donning traditional kimonos, socks and slippers, and umpteen in fur coats) had the same idea so the first act was already sold out and it would be an hour’s wait in the queue to get tickets for the 13h00 act. We satisfied ourselves with taking photos of the building and promising to take in a show in Kyoto instead.

We were just around the corner from the famous Tsujiki Fish Market, where we’d planned to lunch after Kabuki. No problem though, lunch at 11am was still game on since we’d been up forever already!

Most of the market was closed for the holiday, but we still got to see some shop owners preparing fresh seafood for their customer. Some were quite elaborate, like one involving grilling a fresh scallop in the shell, topping it with tuna strips and salmon roe and then blow-torching it to lightly sear it. Not expensive, but too much of a wait for the make-one-at-a time chef to get to us.

By pure chance we stumbled into Sushi Sen, which had been recommended to us by a local at The World’s End pub on New Years. No queue, so we were in and seated at the counter in no time. We opted for a few platters so we could sample more things. Everything was so fresh! And the soy sauce (like all of them we’ve had so far) so light and tasty you could practically drink it on its own! Sadly, a few of the things we ordered didn’t come, but we chalked it up to “lost in translation” and wrote it off as not to be.

Getting the hang of the spaghetti of subway lines, next stop was digital town in Akihabara, known for it’s megastores of electronic goods. All we wanted was a portable speaker to use with the party iPod we’d brought (and clearly not been able to use anyway in our complete-silence holiday house), but we were unprepared for the FOUR AISLES of options! Luckily it was Christian’s choice or I’d still be there!

We’d been rotating our shopping, having commandeered a table at Starbucks to combat the fatigue from our unintentional early rising but decided that, since we’d done almost everything on the list for the day, we’d head back home for an afternoon nap before dinner (planned to be at Ninja restaurant, themed as just that, where you get ambushed at the door and served by chaps in ninja suits).

When we got back home, Michele and I decided to forego the nap in favour of a quick walking tour instead. We loaded Kappabashi (the plastic food place) into Google Maps and headed off.

We had no trouble finding it at all – clearly easier on foot than by underground as it’s easier to get your bearings. Pity though, when we got there, most of it was closed. A few kitchenware stores were open but, while the Japanese are pretty famous for their quality knives, it held little interest for us. Still, the walk had been worthwhile and even I – navigationally challenged as I am – was starting to recognise landmarks and find my way around.

When we got back, the others were ready to head out – and we’d worked up quite an appetite with all the walking on only a few bits of sushi – so first order of business was dinner, at Ninja in Akasaka.

The restaurant lived up to its name, being quite elusive to find… and then (allegedly?) closed for the holidays. Not the end of the world though; there were so many options around the station.

We had a false start at a tempura restaurant, which looked amazing from the illustrated menu in the window. The restaurants are so small and narrow that it’s not uncommon not to be able to get a single table that seats our group of 5. We ended up having a leisurely dinner at a restaurant that very possibly could’ve been more Chinese than Japanese, but the food was great and plentiful (we ordered about 10 different things – including tempura prawns to assuage our initial disappointment) and really cheap at R900 for all the food and beers for all of us!

Kenny had made contact stating interest in meeting up with us, so the rest of the evening was easy for us, leaving him to play tourguide again.

Kenny did a masterful job of showing us how diverse Tokyo is. We connected at an English pub called Hobgoblin in Rappongi, changed atmosphere with a hip-hop style dark ‘n dingy pub called Geronimo’s, popped in for a beer at a fancy supper club lounge bar and eventually parted ways again when he deposited us at an awesome place called The Train Bar, not so imaginatively named as it is literally a bar in a refurbished train caboose.

The last was the coolest by far – small and fun, excellent staff and a wall of CDs which you could give to the bartender to play. We had a raucous time there entertaining ourselves and others until all hours… and felt compelled to literally get the t-shirt to commemorate the experience!

Asia, Japan, Travelogue

Travelogue Japan 1: Tokyo (Part 2)

1 January 2015 cl@rks

TOKYO (Part 2)

31 December 2014 – 01 January 2015

Our day began as the previous night had ended – later than expected and snuggled in our futons (which were pleasantly way more comfortable than they looked). With first item on the agenda being “waiting for Lix and RoRo’s arrival” (them having been delayed at Gatwick and so missing their intended connection in Istanbul), we made a calculated decision to delay rising to 2pm after a trial awakening at midday.

Jeff had obviously given up on our previous night’s arrangement for a walk-through (“at breakfast time; we like to up-and-out early,” we’d said) of how things work, but had left us a note which, at 5 lines long, made us wonder what he’d planned to pad the intended tour with.

Test-driving our kitchen/shower/loo set-up between 3 of us did leave us curious as to how all 5 of us planned to manoeuvre the space over the next few days’ ablutions!

Jeff was back by the time our friends arrived… and took the opportunity to tell us that we’d have to be even quieter than the previous night if we didn’t want Grumpy Old Man Next Door to thump on the wall. Oops.

After a quick catch-up, our newly expanded troupe of 5 hit the streets.

Our plan was to hook up with one of RoRo’s mates who lived near Tokyo Tower, so we grabbed a Pasmo travel card each at the Naka-okachimachi station for our inaugural Tokyo subway journey, to Kamiyacho station.

Kenny was waiting on the platform for us and turned out to be a world class Tokyo tour guide! He took us on a walking tour that started with the Tokyo Tower, a communications and observation tower located in the Shiba-koen district of Minato. At 333 metres, it was the second tallest structure in Japan, with a lattice design inspired by the Eiffel Tower.

Being in the area, we popped in at Kenny’s apartment to meet his wife, Laura, who was unable to join us as she was staying into tend to their son and brand new (only a few days old) baby daughter. They had a gorgeous home that could probably fit our entire digs in their lounge!

With all the walking (some 6000 steps by that point), only a slice of toast on board, the cold and the premature winter darkness, dinner at 17h30 seemed like an obvious next choice on the agenda. Quite a few places were closed, being New Years Eve, but we were soon settled at Meat Man Yakaniko (“fried meat”) skewer restaurant. A feast of meats – all delicious – on skewers ensued. While we were assured that Kenny wasn’t ordering anything obscure or sinister (in Japanese, so we had no idea), sometimes it’s best not to ask and rather hunker down and revel in the msyteru. The Japanese cook to our taste – lightly searing everything so it’s really tender and juicy. And lots of skewers of nibblybits (and not a carb in sight) is surprisingly filling!

Back on the road, we walked through Roppongi – the really upmarket area – past all the designer label stores. The streets were relatively empty, partly because New Years Eve isn’t known to be prime shopping time and partly because it’s a big holiday in Japan, known for mass exodus of Tokyo to hometowns elsewhere.

We took a walk down Takeshita Street, a popular pedestrian-only road lined with major brand shops and smaller independent stores renowned for trend-spotting and -setting. It was much busier than the other places we’d been to, bustling and buzzing with all the shops open and trading.

Having a Pasmo card made traversing the city so easy. We just hopped on a subway to take us to Shibuya, famous for its busy neon billboard-intensive crossing akin to London’s Picadilly Circus. Here we experienced the opposite challenge – previously quite a few of the places Kenny wanted to take us to were closed; here a lot of them were full! The Japanese were quite rigid about seating capacity and weren’t amenable to our offer to hover standing.

No mind, there are so many bars and restaurants that we ended up at a lovely spot overlooking Shibuya.

Sadly, that’s were Kenny had to part ways to get back to Laura, so we bid our farewells and had a last drink while we plotted next steps.

We had previously decided to spend midnight at a temple, so it was just a question of which one. We opted for the Senso-ji one in Asakusa, being close to home, so that we wouldn’t have to face the maddening post-midnight throng on the subway.

Pasmos out, we crossed the city in a single swipe, 19 stops and 230 Yen (R23).

It was a good call. Asakusa – cited by The Rough Guide to Tokyo as “the city’s most colourful and evocative district” – was a hive of activity with food stalls and markets open and tending to the hordes of people. The queue for the shrine was already several hours long, which seemed a bit excessive for the few seconds each person would get as they were ushered through the shrine to say their prayer.

On our own mission, we got beers from the bottle store and positioned ourselves right next to the shrine to people-watch and soak in the atmosphere as midnight was rapidly approaching.

Midnight itself was a strange one – no countdown, no gongs, no fireworks. The crowd just seemed to know the time and titter excitedly with lots of hugging and selfies as the invisible clock silently struck midnight.

Formalities concluded, we jumped on a (very busy) train to get back to Ueno Station, eager to share our previous night’s finds with Lix and RoRo. Already it felt like “coming home” to exit Ueno and see our fave, The World’s End Irish rock pub, across the street!

It didn’t disappoint.

It was full but we were allowed to hover in the doorway passage. We were soon befriended by an Englishman, who revealed that he’d been living in Tokyo for 18 years, working as a sumo wrestling journalist. You don’t hear that that every day.

We were treated to quite a spectacle as the bar staff surprised 2 of their colleagues with a farewell dedication video. We couldn’t fathom what the occasion was, but their video was long, well put-together and the narrative must’ve been quite touching since both girls were soon in tears. Cherry on the top was the DJ proposing to one of the two girls! (Hopefully he makes a better fiancé than DJ – the only thing worse than his music taste was his mixing!)

The pub gave every table a bowl of (cold) noodles on the house to welcome in the new year. A nice touch, but an awkward dish to share.

We left World’s End to go to The Hub, one of a chain of English pubs… but we must’ve gotten our wires crossed as the bartender was cashing up when we got there. Ever-courteous though, a waiter escorted us the few hundred metres to the next branch, which he obviously knew to still be open. It was still full-scale pumping!

A few nightcaps, some bleated classics and a handful of new friends later, we called it a night.

Last stop in was at our trusty 7Eleven for supplies for the morning. The bread was so funny – packed as “loaves” of 2, 4 or 8 slices. Presumably this is because space was such an issue with little to no storage room. Kenny had been telling us that there is a very strong culture for eating (almost all) meals out because restaurants are cheap and excellent, and groceries are relatively expensive (and bulky to store).

It was easily 5am by the time we got in – and we were likely not as quiet as we should’ve been, crinkling crisp packets, giggling and stage-whispering.

It didn’t last long though and we were all off to bed very soon.

THURSDAY

Where we stayed until mid-afternoon on New Years Day.

Poor RoRo had arrived with a cold and was man-down, so we left him sleeping and went off to our usual Taito area around Ueno Station for a spot of dinner.

We decided to try something (else) authentic so did a barbecue restaurant. Each table is fitted with a chimney and the waitress brings a small circular braai with fitted grid ready coals to the table along with whatever raw ingredients you’ve ordered.

We struggled with the menu in Japanese as the pictures were small and blurry, but the one in English wasn’t much more helpful as there were no pictures and the descriptions were unfamiliar (like yagan and urate). We ended up ordering by pointing at the pictures on the Japanese menu and did a pretty good job, ending up with some pleasant cuts of beef, pork and chicken. We did have one fail in a portion of chicken cartilage that looked suspiciously like coccyx and had no meat at all. Clearly a delicacy that we don’t understand. We’d also ordered a soup hotpot to share, which was a rich broth with cubes of beef, ramen, egg and sprouty things in it. Delicious.

But quite small, so we ended up at McDonald’s about a half hour later ordering a Quarter Pounder.

Most of the shops were still open so we spent a few hours wandering up and down the rows of stalls, prodding and browsing and buying all sorts of stuff. We’d thought Japan was going to be really expensive, but it turned out to be a trove of bargains! We bought ski gloves for under R90, Adidas track tops for R100, Chris got 2 pairs of Adidas cross-trainers for R230 each… we’d probably still be shopping if it wasn’t for luggage concerns!

Asia, Japan, Travelogue

Travelogue Japan 1: Tokyo (Part 1)

31 December 2014 cl@rks

TOKYO (Part 1)

30 December 2014

After a disproportionately exuberant farewell gathering at the Baron all afternoon on Sunday, there was the usual dash – but at 4am!! – to the finish line to get last minute ducks in rows. And to perform other essential activities like packing (which had been procrastinated over for days because of the complexity of the warm vs bulk trade-off of winter- and ski-wear options).

Miraculously, everything was done and ready by our agreed-upon 10h30 collection time. Michele, accompanying us to Japan, was to leave her car at the airport while we were away, which made life very simple thanks to the long-term carport parking across the road from ORT International Departure entrance.

Coup de gras was the radio dedication of Turning Japanese by The Vapours (“I really think so!”) and Big In Japan by Alphaville, that Michele had smsed in to her DJ mate to wish us a bon voyage on-air.

Both of our (Emirates, obviously) flights were very full and our online check-in the day before had warned us that we weren’t sitting together on either flight. We managed to negotiate to be in a row of 3 together on the flight to Dubai, but only Christian and I were together on the subsequent connection to Tokyo (a minor detail since most of that 11 hour flight was spent sleeping, thanks in some part to our Dubai Airport splurge on R130 pints of Heineken).

Arriving in Tokyo, Narita International Airport was a bit overwhelming… especially since Lixi and Roro’s flight from London had been delayed so they’d missed their connection to Tokyo – and it was Lixi who’d done all the major prep (including a 38-page detailed and illustrated itinerary!) thereby earning unofficial Group Leader status.

Nonetheless, English and helpful people were aplenty so we soon had a plan and a train ticket for the Airport Express that would take us to Ueno Station where we could catch a taxi for the short ride to our digs.

Except we managed to get on the wrong train!

Fortunately, our error only had minor consequences as the train we were on did the same route as the Express, but stopped. At. Every. Station.

Our mistake had been pointed out to us by a lady sitting next to us on the train, who then asked to see our travel arrangements and gave advice on the subway vs taxi options for getting us from Ueno to our local subway stop (from where we had on-foot directions on our accommodation booking itinerary). Thinking we’d reduce our risk by taking a taxi, the lady guided us to the taxi stop and hailed a driver for us.

I’d been warned by our Airbnb booking host that our (“truly Authentic! Live as the traditional Japanese do!”) Tokyo home was off the grid when I’d asked (on Lix’s instruction) for Google coordinates for our Awesome Itinerary, but hadn’t considered that our driver wouldn’t be able to find it either. Plugging the address into his GPS got us close enough, but we ended up trawling the neighbourhood with his Japanese GPS lady sounding increasingly frustrated as she tried to convince us our destination was a park!

500 Yen later and no closer to home, we decided to get him to drop us at the local subway and call our host to come and get us. Turns out we were only a couple of hundred metres from the station, and located in a small alley parallel to the park.

Relieved to be nested, we happily removed our shoes (on instruction) in the little entrance hall and bowed to enter through the small sliding door and into the house. The small lounge was spartanly furnished with straw floor mats, a low coffee table, several cushions and a floor lamp. The lounge led onto a tiny kitchen with barfridge, single utility table, double hotplate, small sink and, entertainingly, the house’s only shower! … which made more sense when we discovered that the house’s only “bathroom” (a loo with a basin cleverly designed on top of the cistern so that water used in the basin automatically gets used to flush the toilet) was also in the kitchen! The whole living area was about the size of my dining room at home and you could touch the ceiling on flat feet.

Up the steep and narrow staircase took us to the sleeping area: a long room with 5 futon mattresses laid out in a row. The room could be subdivided into 3 rooms using the curtain between bed 1 and 2 and the shoulder-height paper sliding door between bed 3 and 4. Most walls had the same sliding doors, so it was fun sliding them to see what hidey-hole treasures lay beyond. Interestingly the house was an almost 1:1 ratio of living:cupboard space. Disappointingly, most were cupboards with bedware or empty for us to store our stuff.

Our host – whose name we’d already forgotten so we renamed him Jeff – lived in a small room off the lounge and reminded us that we were to be very quiet in the house. The house’s owner had told me that several times on Airbnb, which I’d interpreted as “no loud parties”, but Jeff advised that we were to keep so quiet that in fact pure silence was to be observed upstairs. Turns out that the authentic Japanese paper-thin walls combined with the authentic Japanese grumpy old man neighbour and the very-real prohibition on subletting in this traditional Japanese neighbourhood had gotten our landlord into some hot water already.

We assured Jeff that our intention was to use the house for little more than sleeping and to illustrate told him we were heading straight out to experience Tokyo. He gave us advice, directions and a map, setting us off toward Ueno, where we were apparently destined to find food and drink aplenty. So, feeling rebellious at our flagrant disregard for the no-strangers-in-our-hood rule, we hit our streets and discovered that it was an easy walk to all the action.

We kicked off with a celebratory “Welcome to Tokyo” beer (“The Brew”) from our local 7Eleven, next to the subway station entrance where we’d met Jeff. The challenge was juggling the icy cold beer between hands so as not to get either hand too cold, since it was a crisp 3 degrees Celsius out. Easy task for us, so we rewarded ourselves with another from the next 7Eleven, trying a Kirin this time.

Jeff had certainly advised us well; there was loads of life in the few blocks he’d pointed out. We had a bit of a wander, pouring over the big picture-board menus outside most of the eateries, considering our dinner options… and, predictably, were lured into an Irish rock bar (The World’s End, opposite Ueno Station) for a Guinness, and a tot of Japanese whiskey for Christian and Michele. Great pub, bigger than many we’d passed but still little more than an inflated passage with about 50 seats.

We ended up only eating at around midnight, having struggled to choose what and where to eat among the countless little restaurants that were still open and pumping. Deciding to try lots of things, we ordered shrimp dumplings, fried basil dumplings, barbecued pork and a noodle hotpot. Everything was amazing! Christian ordered a second round of dumplings and Michele a “Magic Pudding” creme caramel dessert and, with drinks, the whole lot only came to R328!

Delighted at our feeding, we went on the hunt for a celebratory Jagermeister. Beside the road-level restaurants and bars, there were loads more upstairs, with stacked neon sign markers outside the stairwells to indicate what was where. We soon learned that, presumably since space was at such a premium, “sitting charges” often applied, which would act as good as any other filter to help us narrow the options moving forward in a city where we were so overwhelmingly spoilt for choice.

We found the Jager – at a ball-busting 1000 Yen (R100) each, but (sort of) softened when it turned out to be a veritable tumblerful, easily a triple or quadruple shot each! A good nail in the fun coffin of an unintentionally extended welcome night in Japan, we started heading for home and (one more nightcap en route later) were in bed by 4am (a very respectable 9pm home-time), with many stories under our belt for our travelmates’ arrival, due for around lunchtime.

Asia, China, Travelogue

Travelogue China 5: Xi’An

3 September 2014 cl@rks

XI’AN

30 August 2014

Not being ones for early-to-bed, it was too tough to stick to our self-imposed 21h00 bedtime in Shanghai and we were still pretty chuffed to make it by 10(ish).

There was something very unnatural about a 03h30 wake-up call, but we forced ourselves to get up and out and met our driver at 4am as planned for the cross-city taxi to the airport. We got to the airport in plenty of time (in fact, it wasn’t even open yet), which had us first in the queue with plenty of time to argue with the airline about our (very) overweight luggage.

We were disappointed to arrive to pelting rain in Xi’An (literally translated as “peace of the West”). While one half was trying to silver-line the “it could have been like this all holiday”, there was a definite “why today of all days?!” half bringing us down. Fortunately, our (private) tour guide, Bryan, and his sidekick, driver Charlie Wong, shared a very sunny disposition so we were soon optimistic that the day wouldn’t be a complete wash.

Another small town… of 10 million people… Xi’An has been a town of historical significance for being the birthplace and centre for many Emperors’ rule, most notably in the short but important Qin (pronounced “Chin”) Dynasty who ruled Chou (as China was then known) from 220 – 206 BC. The Qins first unified China – hence it was renamed after them – and formalised the Chinese script and currency.

Xi’An remained capital through the “Golden Age” of the Tang Dynasty some 1300 years ago, with a – very substantial, for then – population of 2 million people. The city was renown for arts and culture and sent envoys around the world to bring back artefacts from other countries, including a giraffe from Africa which had been thought to be a mythical creature!

We faced a terrible traffic jam, which extended the usual 23 minute trip to the Terracotta Warriors to almost 2 hours. A little disheartened, we suggested lunch before the Warriors tour as we’d eaten little all morning (since 03h30, it was now after 12 and we’d been treated to meal after meal so far this trip!) thanks to our 5* hotel packing us a very poor takeaway breakfast consisting of 4 crusty pastries, 1 coffee and an apple – to share!

It was a good call, not just to avoid rushing the warriors, but also because serendipitously the hardest rain poured down while we were in our cosy local eatery slurping up a noodle soup and wolfing down a “Xi’An burger” (pulled pork in toasted pita) and portion of pork dumplings.

Spirits a little restored, we entered the Terracotta Warriors complex.

Nothing like we expected, the Warriors were being excavated in large domed warehouses with neat permanent-structure entrance halls explaining what you were going to be seeing and where it all fitted in the (real-life) Dynasty saga.

The Warriors were discovered in 1974, quite by accident by a farmer who was looking for a spot to dig a well and stumbled on some artefacty stuff, which he reported to the government. They gave him 5 Yuan (R8,75) for his efforts and, since all the land in China belongs to the government (the people only have lease on the properties they build on the land not the land itself), their excavation began. The farmer has made himself somewhat of a local celeb though, availing himself a few mornings a week to man a table in the foyer and sign coffee table books. Our morning happened to be one such and we caught a glimpse of this modern day hero in the flesh (but didn’t buy a book since they were all in Chinese).

Emperor Qin’s are located 1,5km from Emperor QinShihuang’s mausoleum, symbolising the main defending force that guarded the capital before the Emperor died (bearing in mind he started building it when he was 25 and died at 39). Their tomb was in place to protect the Emperor’s tomb and be in place for him when he returned to the after-life.

Walking into the first pit, you couldn’t help but catch your breath. It was everything you heard it would be and so much more than the pictures prepare you for! 236 metres long and 62 metres wide, it was estimated to contain 6,000 warriors and horses. Even with only about a third currently excavated, it was visual overload. Rows and rows of soldiers facing forward; each one hand crafted with a unique outfit and face, not a single one moulded or duplicated. Unbelievably sophisticated sculpture on such a large scale for now, let alone 2 millennia ago!

Closer inspection revealed the exquisite detail. Hair styles, headwear, shoes and other detail indicate rank (remember this was an army, after all). Each soldier had fingernails and even palmprints! Most of the soldiers’ expressions were sombre or sad, likely reflecting the feelings of the artists who were forced to create them (all Chinese men were subject to one month a year conscription to perform such projects for the Emperor); the bellies of the higher ranked officers were slightly bloated to reflect their pre-battle “liquid courage” indulgence.

The soldiers were made, hollow around a clay coil, off-site and transferred to their positions down the ramps found in each corner of the pit, dug to about 5 metres below ground level. They were placed – interspersed with a few warhorses and chariots (which were made of wood, but can be seen in the fossilised remains) – in rows of 4, each soldier on their own tile stand, on a road made of bricks that are still in tact (2,200 years later!) and bear the imprint signature of their producer! The corridors are divided by clay walls that supported the huge wooden pole rafters covered with mats, earth fill and tilled earth that sealed the Warriors’ tomb and completely concealed them from above.

Sadly: enemies at the time looted the pits for their bronze weapons; the pits collapsed and crushed lots of the soldiers; over time the local people had been using the ground above for burial plots and tombs; and the initial excavation had revealed painted soldiers, but exposure to the light and air made the paint peel within a fortnight… so much of the history is lost to us forever.

… but…

The archeologists had done an incredible job of puzzle-piecing the remnants together (and maintaining the integrity of the pieces in their repair jobs) so it was still a very worthwhile excursion AND they have stopped unearthing more soldiers until they get a handle on how to preserve the paint, so there’s something to look forward to in the future when they get that right.

Pit 2 was just as interesting – if not just much less spoken-about. Located 20 metres from Pit 1, Pit 2 was in an L shape, 124 x 98 metres, covering 6,000 square metres. The contents were a mixture of the military forces – archers, war chariots, cavalrymen and infantrymen – who appear independently, but could presumably assemble to constitute a complete battle formation when required, as was the distinct style of the Qin military strategy.

While the soldiers were slightly larger than life (to appear stronger and more powerful), the other objects are only proportions of real-life since they believed at that time that the Emperor would come back half size in the next life. So, Pit 2 was a collection of half-size horses and carriages. Or maybe, my sceptical nature says, the half-size superstition suited the frugal Emperor as he made the soldiers from cheap terracotta, but the carriages and horse accessories were all bronze, silver, gold, alloys…

Pit 3 was a 520 square metre U shape 29 metres long by 25 metres wide. From its contents, it was surmised that this was the army’s Command Centre. Sadly, it was badly destroyed in history, so reveals only 68 pottery figures, 1 chariot and 34 bronze weapons. Swords had chrome plating with a thickness of 10 to 15 micron to act as a protective cover, which is interesting seeing as the Germans and Americans only “invented” chrome plating in 1937 and 1950!

The last thing to visit was the Emperors Mausoleum, with its 81 satellite pits with all sorts of treasures and resources. Offsite (but only 10 minutes away) the Mausoleum Museum was a bit lacklustre after the Warrior pits (which is probably why it only costs 90 Yuan and the Warriors cost 150).

The view in the pits was from above, through glass floors, which was kinda cool, but the lighting was very low (ostensibly to preserve the artefacts) so you couldn’t see as well as you could in the Warrior pits. There were lots of very well laid-out glass case exhibits, but the artefacts were quite unexciting (crockery, decor, tools, stamps etc) as compared.

It was estimated that the population of China back then, 2200 years ago, was about 30 million people. 1 million were soldiers and of the rest, about 700,000 people’s national duty conscription was dedicated to this project… which is estimated to have cost as much as one third of the country’s GDP. He had a fully manned and functional palace above the ground – even after his death, with servants continuing their duties and serving food to his empty seat at the royal table “feeding his soul” – and an impressive ready-for-action battalion below the ground. The Emperor does seem (from today’s pragmatic perspective) to have been a bit cooked, allocating all that time and resources to setting everything up for his next life. But thank goodness he did – it’s a spectacular worthy of its arguable title as “8th Wonder of the World”.

It was a pity that the rain and the traffic jam cost us seeing the other sights of Xi’An from our original tour plan. I don’t think it counts that we saw lovely pictures of the bell and drum towers, city walls, Big Goose Pagoda, Muslim Quarters etc from a delightfully detailed pictorial article in the inflight magazine on our way back to Beijing!

Almost a good enough reason to go back and spend another day with our friendly tour guide, Bryan Bai, and his affable driver, Charlie Wong.

See more on Bryan Bai (historytourguide@gmail.com) or on TripAdvisor .

CHAMPAGNE

SUNDAY

MONDAY

TUESDAY

SANUR & UBUD

LEMBONGAN

THURSDAY

GILI TRAWANGAN

TUESDAY

WEDNESDAY

PADANGBAI

KYOTO

SATURDAY

SUNDAY

TOKYO (Part 3)

TOKYO (Part 2)

THURSDAY

TOKYO (Part 1)

XI’AN

on the move