Sydney – New Year’s Eve

We arrived in Sidney on 30^th. Well, actually we arrived in Manly, suburb of Sidney. As we did not have any accommodation, we figured we’ll sleep in a car again. This would have been before we got acquainted with the culture in Sydney. Well, at least in Manly. On New Year’s eve everybody was up at dawn for surfing, swimming, running or whatever other activity that involved cardio workout and showing off your body. Felt like one of the cheesy Star Trek Next Generation episodes where everybody is pretty, well-adjusted and abnormally happy. We figured it must be Manly.

Now, next decision was one of the best. We decided to go to Sidney with ferry. Arrived in harbour in the right way – stunning view of bridge and city skyline. We REALLY liked this. However, place where we wanted to go to watch the fireworks was closed already. About three hours ahead of schedule! Dejan was devastated to have missed sitting 11 hours in the sun waiting to see fireworks (he actually tried to hide this, but not very successfully). So, we decided to explore holidays Sidney. And we liked what we saw. Beautiful city with amazing harbour, bridge and center. We even managed to find some company to have few drinks with! And if even you had to guess – yes, they were Irish from Cork. Currently living in Melbourne. Was nice to have a company for few hours, but then we head off to find a place to see the fireworks (Nives was adamant!).

Walking in the town we found another group we chatted to. This time Bosnians (probably second generation), living in Sydney. After a while, we ended up in a nice spot close to the bridge and had a really good view of the fireworks. That was stunning, albeit a bit too short. All in all it lasted about 10 minutes and we kind of felt it should have been longer. And then, we went to Manly again to spend another night in a car.

If we thought that people were ‘funny’ on December 31^st they were absolutely weird on January 1^st. Everybody was jogging and exercising again first thing in the morning!!! We are talking 6 am here – we barely made it to the car! In our opinion, this is textbook OCD.

After few nights in the car and all the celebrations, we decided to take a break for a few days and go into the mountains for a bit of R&R.

Hunter’s Valley

This famous wine region deserved a post of its own. At least we thought so.

We are not really connoisseurs of Australian wines in Europe, too fruity for our taste. But we figured we had to try them now we are in the Oz. Best bet was to go to the oldest wine region in the country / continent – Hunter’s Valley.

Big surprise was that there were practically no vineyards to be seen! Just vine tastings and shops galore. Soon we realized that this is a big selling ground and not big grapes growing ground. In one of the vineries we visited they actually confessed that the grapes grown in their vineyards in Hunter’s are not used for vine at all!

Vines we have tried were not so bad. Definitely more to Australian vine than we thought. Are they going to make our first pick in the shops? Hardly. Only wine we bought was the closest to Bordeaux we could get (no Shiraz in it definitely!).

In Hunter valley we decided to treat ourselves to a motel room (we sort of needed a shower). So, we ended up in Kurri-Kurri. And indeed we got the shower there – a cold one. As was the welcome. First the guy was annoyed that we checked the prices on the Internet (tried to charge us higher rate). And then on the checkout we were chased out because we were 15 minutes late. Reality: another lovely perk of Australia – checkouts are at 10 am!!! And this being country of rules and regulations this means 10 am sharp. So, we left the place with the owner yelling that if we do not leave immediately he will call the police. What is it with the Australians and this fear of police – never have we seen anything like it before. And this would include growing up in what is these days known as socialistic repression.

On our way to Sidney (our New Year’s Eve destination) we also saw some more beaches (honestly, they all look same by now). And a few more… and a few extra…

Australia – Brisbane to Sydney

We tried a few places recommended in guides. They were supposed to be these beautiful sea-side towns that you just fall in love with instantaneously. Well, maybe we expected too much, but they were a bit of a washout (in our opinion anyway). Just few decent small hotels next to a nice beach with decent looking main road with few shops. However, very pretentious and up-market and that spoilt the whole thing for us. Guess, it is fine, except for that feel of people there feeling a bit better than the rest. Which sort of didn't go that well with the two of us.

Next surprise in Australia was amount of rules and regulations! Signpost after signpost warning you will be fined, and of heavy penalties and restrictions welcome you everywhere. Not to mention bizarre amount of speed radars on the roads (and we do mean bizarre here!!!). Felt a bit like 1984 and Big Brother is watching you really. Possibly not the best thing for the Balkan souls – we believe rules have been invented to be broken after all! If we ever thought that Germans were obsessed with order, this definitely changed in Australia. These guys just pushed it to a new level! Not surprised now of what we learned in Bali – thousands of young Australians die every year there just in scooter accidents. For them, it is probably their first time to be somewhere where there are no rules (well, there are but nobody is really paying any attention) and you can go wild. And seems they do…

Next bad surprise Australia had for us were the prices To say this place is pricey is a major understatement. It is downright extortionately expensive! But we had to bite the bullet here. Well, with a few adjustments. Our lovely car was upgraded from the transportation vehicle to both: dining room and bedroom. Sitting room also, you could say as we watch movies on laptop in it as well. Amazingly how much stuff you can do in such a tiny little space. Sort of ad-hoc camping. And as we both really love camping we were looking forward to this as an adventure. Still, gone are the days of dining outside we enjoyed so much in south-east Asia… Another thing to add to list of what we are missing (nice sun and warm nights being on it as well).

Australia - We have landed

On Boxing Day we landed in Gold Coast. We knew nothing of this place before we arrived. Only that it is close to Brisbane and closest airport to Cairns, as initially we intended to go diving first. But, we changed our minds in the meantime (and yes, that does happen a lot these days). After a lot of diving in Asia, we figured that it will be better to do a bit of sightseeing (especially the cities!!!)  and do diving towards the end of our stay in Ozz. So, no plans were made and we figured we’ll get the place to overnight when we get there.

First surprise is that we almost got fined for having 2 apples! They were supposed to be snack on the plain, but we forgot about them along the way. This has happened before, but usually we just had to leave the fruit at the airport. Talking of fines was a new thing. At the time we just thought the guy on the airport had a bad day that improved when he allowed us to go. Little did we know…

Second surprise was that we could not find accommodation in Gold Coast. Seems this is The Place all people go for Christmas in Australia! So, we cut our losses and decided to spend the night on the airport. Not a big deal, done it lots of times… Until we were chucked out at 11 pm – this airport closes for the night!!! Now, this was a major surprise. On one side no accommodation, on the other airport closes for the night (usually this happens only in sh**holes and God forsaken places in our experience, and we have profound one on both earlier mentioned). But there it was, we spend the night outside…

And then there was the third surprise. It was cold! And not a little bit chilly, but properly cold – temperature dropped below 20 Celsius (for our Irish readers, we are now officially wimps…). We somehow made it thru the night wrapped up in sarongs (thank God Nives went a bit crazy on Bali) and went to Brisbane early next morning.

This would be next surprise. It is a nice city, with lovely skyline and really nice river running through it. But it was empty! Except for the rush hour in the main shopping area, it was empty… no pulse… We tried to find a nice place for the dinner, but the fullest place was Irish pub (no surprises there!) and that one was almost empty. We figured it was the holidays…

So, our first impressions of Australia? Not very good, we are afraid. But there is enough time for improvement!

We hired a car in Brisbane (good deal there – brand new car for a good price!) and headed off south. First stop – Gold Coast. We had to see what was the whole fuss about! And actually, we liked it. It was a really nice beach with lovely sand (no shade thou!) and new, really tall high-rise buildings in the background. Like combo of Dubai and Costa Brava… sort off… It was different to what you usually see, but not a place to stay for long time in our opinion (especially if not into surfing). Few hours was enough and we headed south again. Idea is to go to Sydney for New Year’s Eve and see few places on the way.

Christmas Eve and Day in Kuala Lumpur

Back in KL – again. And happy to be here, as always… However, this time we decided to really treat ourselves and spend Christmas in Traders, one of the best hotels in KL. And yes, we loved it! On arrival they had special upgrade, which included better room, breakfast, tea in the afternoon and cocktails in the evening. All for €37 per day. Hit us was the reply! And boy, was that good decision! Breakfast was amazing (we hit the cheese and bread like crazy…), tea was actually tea, cakes and sandwiches and cocktails were any drinks you wanted (and yes, you guessed right – we had wine) plus food. Actually worked out as full board, thank you very much. Not to mention the pool bar and the spa… Mmmmm…

But we also had some shopping to do. “Little Shit” needed to be replaced. So, we got ourselves new Samsung Galaxy tab and named it Little Shit Junior, or just Junior. It is a welcomed addition to our family and we love it already!

But the biggest surprise for us was The Christmas in KL. We have never before seen shopping malls decorated to this extent. It was just unbelievable! And all the fuss on the streets on the Christmas eve! Everybody was selling rain-deer and blinking Santa hats. So we had to join in and bought us a pair. It was just surreal to see women covered with shawls wearing Christmas hats. And everybody in the streets were just shouting Merry Christmas. You can’t not to feel that Christmas does not have a lot to do with religion any more, it is just a happening. With accent on buying, we are afraid.

Two days in KL passed so quickly that we couldn’t believe it. Soon it was time to pack again and head to Australia.

Pulau Weh

Well, guess we are back in Indonesia again (didn’t believe this was to happen after Bali!). And it was such a good decision! This part of this vast country is just beautiful and amazing, people are so warm and friendly. We even managed to stop a total stranger in the middle of the night in the storm to take us home. And he did it with the smile! Did I mention there was a power cut and it was completely dark? Totally and completely different to feeling we had in Bali. Not to mention how clean and tidy it was (again, completely different to Bali).

So, a little about the place. Pulau Weh is a small island on the north-west of Sumatra, in Aceh region. Historically, it is from Aceh that Islam spread to rest of Indonesia. Today it is still one of the most traditional and conservative regions of this big country. You get there by taking the ferry in the capital of the region – Banda Aceh. These days with direct flights from KL with AirAsia Pulau Weh is getting to be more and more popular in the diving community. But it is still a small, sleepy place in the south of the Andaman sea. It does take a flight, bus, ferry and then another bus to get there after all, you know.

Now, to the important part – diving. As it is the first destination after Palau we decided to go easy with our judgement (we trashed Sipadan last time and it really wasn’t fair). It is hard to compare even after the typhoon. So, our opinion? It is a very nice diving ground – nice coral (especially gorgonians), very good small fish life, not bad visibility. However, what really struck us was evident lack of big fish. We did see a tuna or two, few giant trevallies and a shark or two in the distance (dive guides got so excited when sharks were passing! So different to Palau where they just don’t bother to point them out… well, they are all over the place there…). But that was it. We probably will not be promoting Pulau Weh to our favourite places, but it was a nice place to go for some relaxed diving and few afternoons off just lying in hammock and reading a book. The later part was superb actually…

What we didn’t bargain for is that Pulau Weh would turn out to be a culinary destination! All praise goes to Justin – doing what he likes a lot (sport fishing) he provided some first quality fish. Now, we do feel bad for eating wild fish, but our defence is that this is sustainable fishing unlike the big commercial operations. And we will not be eating fish in Australia , so hopefully it evens out.

One week passed in no time and in no time it was time to go back to KL.

Now, this should be the end of the post, but as ever it is not the end of Pulau Weh adventure. On the morning we got to the port and tried to board the ferry we were told that all tickets were sold out. To our horror guys refused to let us in. This is definitely something we were even considering! Missing this ferry meant missing the flight to KL and subsequent flight to Australia. A lot of pleading and negotiating (sounds better then pleading, doesn’t it?) and some financial incentive proved to do the trick (€15 goes a long way in Indonesia…). But that was stressful! We finally got on the boat (think some locals were asked to take next ferry to allow us to go) to be asked to leave 15 minutes later. This would be by another guy. So, our ‘travel agent’ then arranged it (probably had to share the profit, but that is life for you). After that we found a corner and looked down until the ferry departed. With half hour delay! In the end we barely made the flight as it is. So leaving Indonesia, again. For a while this time. But it was good decision that we went to Pulau Weh, our perception of the country improved drastically.

KL – here we come! Again…

Some more pictures here.

Kuala Lumpur (again)

With deepest sadness we regret to inform you that “Little Shit” (Samsung tablet) got stolen. It will be sorely missed. Buaaaaa!!!

What was supposed to be a nice day in one of our favourite cities turned into police station visit. Now we really have seen all of KL. Nives didn't want me to take any pictures so nothing more show you about it.