Moveable Type: Singapore Memories Part 1

One of the best parts about living in Singapore has been the proximity to other countries! I think we get a little lonely down in Australia so far away from everywhere else, so Eoin and I have tried to make up for it in the last 1.5 years by travelling whenever our money, time and energy allowed it!

Now that I sit down to put a few of my favourites together (with Soulsavers playing in the background) it feels really epic! These are some of the trips from the last year (mostly because I have already packed the hard drive with photos from more than a year ago).

Bukit Lawang (Sumatra, Indonesia) 3-5 October 2014

In October last year, Eoin and I went to Bukit Lawang in Gunung Leuser National Park (in North Sumatra, Indonesia) to see some monkeys, apes and bats. It was an amazing trip that saw us trekking to spend the night in a "tent" in the middle of the jungle, in the middle of a flood. I got to see my first great apes - a female orangutan and her baby. We saw them from a distance at first, and then later as we were sitting down for some fruit, Mrs. Orangutan decided that she'd quite like some afternoon tea as well, and came right up to where our group was sitting (note from the photo below - those photos are taking using no zoom - she really came up to about 2-3 m away from us, and shared our watermelon). We also forded a river as it was about to burst, bathed in a flooded waterfall, watched a stupid macaque steal our immodium, saw some Thomas' leaf monkeys, white handed gibbons brachiating, and walked under a small family of siamangs. Oh yeah, and then we rafted back to town on inner tubes lashed together, and saw a bird of paradise while doing so. I forgot how awesome that weekend was!

One of the best moments of my whole life

The calm after the storm - our camping ground in the morning (post-waterfall baths)

The rain started as we were slithering down a pretty steep track, just before we had to cross the river to the campsite.

Welcome to camp! So cozy. Wow, GoPros make your arms look super long.

Rafting back to Bukit Lawang

Bhutan 19-25 October 2014

I wrote a little about our wonderful Bhutan trip here, but I'll take any excuse to think about it again! We had a great week-ish - we had a tour guide named Kinley (guides and tour agencies are required to visit Bhutan) who took us through Thimpu, Punakha, Paro, and walking on the Bumdra Trek (up to about 4100 m) to see the Tiger's Nest Monastery. Such a beautiful country - such cool, clean, fresh air! We got a liiiiiiittle bit lost on the way down the Bumdra Trek, and maybe almost got stranded for the night in the himalayas (poor Kinley wasn't a trekking guide!), but were rescued by a yak herder (seriously), and then driven back to town after our driver gave up on us by one of the restaurant workers. I loved Bhutan, I loved the people, I loved the colours, I fell in love with a river (Paro-cha, I love you like you were Haku from Spirited Away), and I loved the chilli cheese (the rest of your food was leavable).

Prayer flags at the BBS tower (Lover's Point) over Thimpu

Me at Dochula Pass, with my first glimpse of the himalayas

Eoin at Dochula pass, with a few of the 108 stupas

The 4100m peak at the top of the Bumdra trek (above the Bumdra monastery)

Tiger's Nest Monastery after a LOOONG walk

Kuching (Borneo, Malaysia) 31 December 2014 - 4 January 2015

We headed to Kuching in Sarawak, Borneo almost immediately after we got home from our Australian Christmas visit. We flew in on the 31st, so we ended up heading down to the riverside opposite the Astana to ring in the New Year with a non-official fireworks display, and a wonderful time watching kids shoot awesome slingshot LED helicopters into the air.

LED helicopter and the giant light up Christmas tree at the promenade where we saw in the New Year

It rained a LOT of the time we were in Kuching. It was a lovely little town (Kuching means "cat" in Malay, so there are a few cat statues around), with a lot on interesting things to see. We went on a quick river cruise, hit up a few temples, parks, an interesting natural history museum, an aquarium, did a cooking class, ate a lot (including an ostrich burger), and swam in some awfully dirty ocean (at Santubong beach). We didn't get to go to the Bako National Park as planned, due to boats not running from rain/tides/rain/tides, but we did get to go kayaking through the Bornean jungle - MORE than made up for not seeing proboscis monkeys.

Accidental private boat trip! Yay for rain keeping everyone else away.

In a waterfall in a river in Borneo is my happy place.

Majestic explorers of the guided river tour! But there WERE crocodiles!

Learned to cook chicken curry, steamed dessert things with corn and ferns with fishy sambal (not our favourite...)

Yogyakarta (Java, Indonesia) 18-22 February 2015

Caught the ferry to Batam first to be able to fly with Indonesian domestic airlines to Yogyakarta for a long weekend (excellent times to travel in Singapore, but often booked out/prices inflated). Yogyakarta was a brilliant city - obviously a great arts culture in the city, interesting buildings and architecture around and a lovely centre for the main event in the area - Borobudur and Prambanan temples! Borobudur is a Buddhist temple (unusual in Indonesia), and Prambanan is a Hindu temple, and both are amazing complexes. We saw the sunrise over Borobudur from Setumbu Hill, then spent a full day looking around the temples. Borobudur was lovely as we got in the gates at about 6:30 and it wasn't too hot before we left at about midday, but Prambanan was HOT!

Borobudur upper levels with some kids practicing their English

Borobudur. Shush, it was early.

Prambanan temple complex

Phuket (Thailand) 4-6 June 2015

While Eoin's Mum and Dad were visiting, we took the opportunity to show them a little more of South East Asia, and went to Phuket for the weekend. We stayed in a dinkey little hotel right up in the north of the island called Micky Monkey - in tents on the beach! We had the whole place to ourselves, and most of Mai Khao (the beach) as well. It was nice and relaxing, and we swam and walked on the beach and