September in Bali: Last Pampering

It was time to call it wraps in Bali. I’d spent about 3 weeks diving in both Bali and Komodo and while I enjoyed it all greatly, it was time to take a break from being underwater. What better way than to do it in style – at one of the Nusa Dua resorts. I was lucky enough to get a free ride from Permuteran to the airport from a very generous Spanish couple. It was there that I met my aunt for our pampering at the resort.

We stayed at the Hyatt, a lushly landscaped resort.

My aunt found a great deal on it and we spent four days lazing around this resort.

Most of the time was spent at the swimming pool, a free form one that snaked round the premises. It was lovely wandering from one coil to another, exploring the little surprises round the corner.

One cute surprise was the slide, big enough for adults even! I enjoyed going down a few times, it was pretty fast. But soon I got embarrassed because little kids were going both before and after me.

At breakfast, we had a choice of the open air patio or comfortable airconditioning inside. The open air patio gave us a beautiful view of birds enjoying the grounds too. They were fairly tame and I didn’t have to zoom too much to catch good shots.

This little fella was our breakfast companion as we sat by the lily pond. In exchange for his companionship, we gave him a few morsels of bread from our table.

And after spending the day lazing in the pool, we had dinner at Jimbaran beach. Here we had the typical spread of barbecued seafood, and here I also wave goodbye with my crab to the end of the Bali series.

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July in Vietnam: Sand Dunes, Canyons and Fairy Springs

Mui Ne is particularly famous for its sand dunes and there’s little question why. They are smack in the middle of seemingly nowhere, surrounded by scrub and water.

It’s inexplicable to me how a patch of dry desert sand can rise up behind a lake full of blooming water lilies and lotuses, but such is the micro-climate of the area.

Fine yellow sand had somehow been deposited in this area. The dunes built up somehow stayed here and only shifted their peaks from day to day in the wind.

The wind blew ripples in the sand and soon covered up evidence of human presence.

There were a fair number of other tourists poking around and it was a little tricky to get pictures with no one else inside. Yet, when I took these pictures, it all looked so unspoiled and untouched.

Only the well-trodden paths showed signs of people around…

… otherwise I was free to enjoy the company of the early morning dunes in solitude.

The time of the day was just right to admire the play of light on the sand and against the sky.

I can’t help but let you scroll through a few more of the pictures yourself, they speak for themselves so well.

And then it was time to go, the sun was getting high in the sky and the lake was starting to lose its intense blue.

Before it got too hot, I went to check out the flowers blooming in the lake.

The lotuses were beautiful but I couldn’t get too close because of the mud and insects.

Then it was onwards to the red canyon.

Here, the red sand wasn’t quite as pretty as the yellow/white dunes of earlier in the day, but past rains had cut a canyon of sorts through. It made for an interesting study that I wish I’d seen when I studied physical geography in school so many years ago.

Last stop of all was another series of dunes, this time cut through by an actual spring.

The multi-coloured sand and earth it revealed made it quite apt to be called the Fairy Springs.

It was a bit of a fun walk squelching my way up the fine silt, passing by dried up tributaries.

But after a while the scenery was a little monotonous and I headed back…

… to the beach to say my goodbyes before heading to Ho Chi Minh City.

June in Thailand: Erawan Falls

Another stop on my day tour was the Erawan Falls,  a lovely series of seven waterfalls in a nature reserve.

The first waterfall had a wide plunge area and was so beautiful that there was a photo shoot there. If you look carefully, you’ll see some reflectors and an unnaturally bright area above the waterfall.

This was where Jess and David, two friends I met on the tour, had a great idea of taking pictures with the number of each waterfall. So here’s me and number one.

Number two I felt was far prettier because we could get much closer to the waterfall and also because the cascades were far wider and more “trickly”.

There were also fish that we were warned nibble at people, so not to swim there. We weren’t that hot yet anyway.

Nonetheless, we appreciated the signs to be careful while swimming lest we got cramps. That was super kind of them.

We also liked the friendly Fun With English reminder to beware of a monkey stealing a belonging.

Next up, number three was a slimmer version of number two and no less pretty.

We slogged up further to number four, which was then deserted. It was a small waterfall flowing over a smooth rock into a deep plunge pool. We didn’t think much of it and pressed on…

… past shamanistic sites where locals appeased the spirits of nature by wrapping them with cloth and offering up clothes to them.

Then waterfall number five, consisting of many shallow pools. We had to clamber over them, getting our shoes wet, to get to the next level of the falls.

Number six was a bit of a dud as it was hidden behind some fairly thick undergrowth. It was quite hard to get a good shot, but Jess and David were excellent company and that kept the spirits up despite the growing heat of the day.

Even duds have their own beauty. Number six showed how pristine it could be up here, it was almost as if too many people gave up and headed back after the first five falls. I like how there was this feeling of stumbling across number six for the first time, it was so hidden behind the trees.

Finally we made it to number seven together, as evidenced by Jess and David below.

This topmost waterfall had lovely pools to swim in…

… so after discovering the end of the trail and not being adventurous enough to go off-trail hiking…

… we contented ourselves in a lovely dip in one of these pools. It was a great way to cool off after the hot and sweaty hike up.

On our way down, there were lots of people at number four.

As it turned out, the smooth rock and deep plunge pool were perfect for sliding down. I did it three ways: solo sitting up, solo face down and with a group.

It was loads of fun splashing about!

We just had to be careful of wardrobe malfunctions, which thankfully I didn’t have.

And down we went, back to revisit number one again.

What a lovely trek!

August in China: Yangshuo

Tortoise and I headed over to Yangshuo, which was about a couple of hours away by coach. While still touristy, this place certainly has a lot more charm than Guilin. It has slightly cheesy but very atmospheric restored ancient street, complete with old-style inns and dining places. It was fantastic walking down the street and looking up to see the hills looming above.

Still, there was no escaping the tourists. Check out the number of tour buses and coaches in the small tourist parking area.

We made arrangements through our guest house for a trip on the Li River. After about an hour on public transport in a packed minibus and then a modified jumbo tuk-tuk of sorts, we came face to face with one of the most famous images in China.

This appears on the back of a ¥20 note so we had no choice but to follow the lead of the domestic tourists to whip out our prepared notes for a photo!

We then got onto our private bamboo raft and chugged up the river. It’s a pity that the sun was in our eyes and the light wasn’t good for photos. You’ll just have to make do with the ones here.

The limestone formations here covered the gamut of weird and wonderful. Our map described a good 10 names of features we could hardly make out. After a couple of times shouting over the phut-phut of the engine to our raft driver, we gave up trying to figure out which name corresponded to which spot. It was all starting to look the same kinds of weird to us.

Before long, other rafts carrying domestic tourists came by and starting spraying water on us. They’d bought plastic spray guns from street vendors and indiscriminately drenched passing rafts. We beseeched our bewildered raftman to avoid them as far as possible. He probably wondered why we didn’t want to have fun playing in the magical murky waters. No good pictures of the water fights for fear of getting too close and then being caught in the crossfire!