Sydney, Jan., 2019

We arrived  in Sydney Harbor around 7Am on our ship.  It was a very pretty entrance. We passed the Opera house and went under the historic bridge and left the ship for good and went to our hotel. We went to a big name hotel expecting great things there, but we a little disappointed.  The public areas were a little odd but in very good condition, but the rooms seemed like they were from the 1970's. However, it was ok.  We learned that they plan to renovate the rooms later in the year by shutting down for a few months, which is probably what it would take to avoid irritating a lot of customers.

 After checking in we walked to the Opera House and took a tour that was very good. It was the last one for the day or close to that as we thought it would be interesting to see the place in the dark if we could find dinner.  They allow photography in areas where they are not set up for a performance and there were lots of interesting spots.

We had dinner at a superb restaurant that is right at the opera house. We learned that there is a video show on surfaces of the opera house at night- two performances and we were told where to stand to get a good view.  It was worth the wait for the show. It was a spectacular series of moving and evolving images of aboriginal art and stories.

The next day we visited the main art museum. It was a bit crowded, but not bad and a great view of lots of art of various origins, but we mostly wanted to see aboriginal art. There were lots of examples. The Brisbane Museum was very good and this one was as well.

It rained a bit in the afternoon as we walked back to the hotel.  We took a taxi to a restaurant area in the early evening and then walked back to the hotel in the evening.
The next day we took a ferry to the Zoo. There was a huge line of people waiting to ride the skyway to the top and we were unhappy about that and concluded there must be another way up. We met an old woman who was there to aid visitors and she said we could take a bus. Apparently, one is supposed to pay for all this a head of time, but the bus driver let us go for free.  We found people were very understanding of tourists who are not familiar with the systems.  The zoo was very nice, but we were both a bit tired of crowds - it was a holiday season- and Summer too! We got to see more of the unusual ( to us) animals of Australia.

Janet went further on the ferry to a beach area while Jim went back to the city to walk around more. He discovered some intersting shops and Victoria  Mall or market. It was built long ago in Victoria's period, and has a very pleasant old time feel.  There is one shop for someone who makes shirt collars. Most other shops are more modern styles.  Its a beautiful old building that has been well maintained and carefully updated to keep the old charm.
It was around this time that we changed our flights home. Knowing that Ziggy was not doing well and being tired of traveling, we changed flights. Our original plan was to go to Hawaii for 2 nights and see a little and break up the flights, but we chaged it to go to Honolulu and then catch a flight after a few hour layover to New York.
Our last day is spent mostly walking in an area where galleries are located. Some were open, some

not. Those that were open were interesting.  We walked and it was a bit hot. We took a break for light food and drink, but Janet took a mis- step on a hard- to- see step and fell, but, fortunately wasn't seriously hurt- just shaken up.  We found a book store and had coffee and then took a taxi back to town and then walked to the hotel.
The next day was a bit rainy, but we went to see a few places near the hotel and in the afternoon we flew to Honolulu and then New York where we rented a car and drove to the veterinarian's office to see Zoe and Ziggy and see that Ziggy was suffering and we had to let him depart.  
We got home and found it in good condition.  We replaced the 35 year old furnace last fall and it seemed to have kept the place warm! We came from middle of Summer to middle of Winter and that transition is a bit hard to deal with.

Cairns, Magnetic Island and Brisbane

We arrived in Cairns from Alice Springs on Dec. 29. It was rainy season and it was overcast most of the time in Cairns and we also had some very heavy rain. We got a little lucky in that it did not rain all the time so we could do some things. We walked about town a bit and found it a pleasant city. At night we went to a center set up for people to see and hear some aboriginal people talk abouttraditions and play some music. We had dinner after and tasted crocodile and kangaroo meat.

We walked across a wood bridge across a river to get to part of the show.  The next day we road near the place and saw how swollen the river was from all the rain. On that trip we were on a bus to Kuranda- a rather nice village that is mainly for tourists- lots of shops and eateries and galleries.  From Kuranda we boarded the sky ride that went over forests and ended near the place we were the previous night. The sky ride was pleasant but it was overcast and in the clouds much off the time.  We got off at one point to see a big water fall, but there was so much mist due to the huge volume of water (due to the rain) that we could not actually see the falls!    Our guide said they have seen higher water levels in the past, but it was awhile ago.   

The next day we were supposed to ride an old train on a scenic route, but were told it was closed due to land slides about 10 days earlier. We went to the aquarium in the city instead.  It was quite nice but crowded since it was a Sunday, but also a Holiday period.  
On New Years Eve Janet was to go snorkeling on part of the Great Barrier Reef, but the stormy weather made the sea to rough, so that was canceled.  We had a nice dinner on the ship that night.

New years Day was probably our most pleasing day in Australia. We signed up for a trip to Magnetic Island.  Apparently, James Cook noted that his compasses behaved strangely when his ships passed there in the late 1700's  and named the island accordingly.  We got a little tour of the island and then our guide took us through a residential area to a small grove of trees where we found 5 Koala's in the trees.  They were mostly sleeping, but they moved a bit. It looked like two were adults and 3wereyounger, but they each had their own tree. They were very cyte and it was good the see them free to go wherever they wanted.  We were told their biggest enemies are dogs and cars when they are not up in the trees. After this we went to a sanctuary which is really a small zoo. Here we got hold a koala female who was very cute and did not seem to mind too much.  We also got to pet a wombat! We could not remember ever seeing a wombat before.  He was quite big- we were told about 60 lbs!He was quite curious and wa slooking all around and seeing who was scratching his hip.  There is a cute video on the web titled "george the baby wombat"  it is quite cute.  Our wombat was full grown though, but still rather cute.
The next day was on a sail boat out to an island where Janet could snorkel while Jim just watched.
The next day was a day at sea on the way to Brisbane.
At Brisbane we visited a zoo where we saw more koalas, wallabies, birds, kangaroos and had a short stop at a park that overlooks the city.We got off the group bus in the city in order to visit the art museum and any shops that looked interesting.  The museum was very nice and free to visit. We saw lots of aboriginal art works that we liked and had a good lunch at the museum cafe.Afterthe museum we walked a mile or so to get on a shuttle bus that was making trips back and forth from our ship to the center of the city.
Our next day was at sea and then we arrived in Sydney.

Darwin and Alice Springs , Australia

It took a day at sea and more to reach Darwin from Komodo.  In Darwin, we and about 14 other people got off the ship in a special group that were on a trip to Alice Springs in the interior- or "outback" for a couple days.   We boarded a bus in Darwin to go to Litchfield National Park outside of Darwin.  Northern Australia can get a lot of rain, but most of the day was dry but it was overcast much of the time.   At the park we saw lots of interesting flora but not many animals except a few interesting birds.  We visited an area with termite mounds. They called them "magnetic" termites because the mounds were tall and thin in the east- west direction but wide in the north- south they were "oriented" to point north- south.  The guide said it is likely that the termites build them this way so the mounds get the most area exposed to the sun - especially in the colder months.
We saw some nice waterfalls and stream with people swimming in what is summer for them. Being near year end it is a holiday period too.
From the park we rode back to Darwin. It was raining in Darwin, but we stopped at the water to look a bit and drove through a very nice park  to see a few Wallabies around.  While driving, the guide pointed out a number of small airstrips and defensive positions that were buily in WWII to defend against Japanese air attacks and a possible invasion.  It sounded like Austaralia was bombed more  than we thought.  We knew Darwin had been bombed a bit. It was the major port on northern Australia.  
We also learned that Darwin is in the Northern Territory, which is not a state and later learned that about half the people in NT live around Darwin and they number on about 125,000. NT is a large area.
We stayed the night in a hotel in Darwin that was nothing special ,but acceptable. Early in the morning we left for the airport an took our approx. 2 hour flight to Alice Springs.  It is more than 900 miles- like flying from New York to Chicago and still in the same territory.
At Alice Springs we were a little surprised when a large family group stayed at the Airport and flew on the Uluru or Ayer's Rock. So there were only about 10 of us  plus aide from the ship who were met with our luggage at the airport by our local guide.   Like in Bali we left most of our luggage on the ship and and just brought a small amount of stuff to last 4 days.
We boarded a small bus with a trailer attached. The luggage went in the trailer.  It was already getting hot so we all got water bottles.  It got to  43C or about 109F , but the humidity was fairly low.
We went to the Desert Park near Alice. This is a very nicely done, mostly outdoor park where you walk around on paths to see various animals and plants that are relatively common in the area.  They have a nocturnal house too.  It was hot, but interesting.
In the afternoon we visited the "Flying Doctors" service.  There have been stories about this operation reported over the years.  Australia is such a huge country with people spread out all over that medical care is hord to provide in a timely way.  The Flying Doctors help reduce the time to get doctors to patients or patients to hospitals.  Their headquarters is here in Alice.   Afterword we checked into the hotel and we said we wanted to see some of the artists shops in town so our guide dropped us off in town and told us where to find a taxi- so we could get back to our hotel. The hotel was a mile or two from the town center, which would be walkable except when it is 109F!
It turned out that most of the art shops were closed because it was in the holiday period when school was out and people travel! This was disappointing because we wanted to see some work by the aboriginal people.  We took a taxi back to the hotel.
The next day our driver/guide, who was quite good and knowledgeable about the area and many of the customs of the aboriginals, met us with the group of people who had gone to uluru.   We drove off to the west from Alice prings and saw 4 different areas where there are breaks in the mountain ranges.

At one break there were "rock wallabies" , which are a smaller species- we saw 2 or 3. The guide said they hide very easily and you won't see them if they don't feel like being seen.  These areas we visited all had some water.  Some had enough for swimming, while others were just small amounts.  The guide explained that there is actually a lot of water in the area, but it is all underground. The places where it is visible are where the ground level is lower.  The water does flow along ancient rivers undergorund.  Above ground we see lots of dry river beds.  It does rain in this area and sometimes these rivers are flowing quite vigorusly.  All the roads on which we road had dips where water flowed over in the rains.  A number of vehicles we saw had snorkels so they could drive through these dips when it was wet.
We had lunch at a Glen Helen resort  off of Namatjira highway that was not far from Hermannsburg that is on a different road. We later learned about Pottery from Hermannsburg that has many collectors.  Albert Namatjira was a highly respected water colorist, who did many paintings of these areas.   We saw more places on the way back to Alice.  Once in Alice we visited the  telegraph station that was part of the series that connected Adelaide with Darwin through the outback.
WE returnee dto the hotel. We were tired from the walking in the heat and decided not to join the group for a Camel ride in the evening. We had ridden Camels in India and decided that it was worth doing - once.
We had a "taste" of the outback. It is beautiful country, but a bit hot.  It does get quite  chilly in their winter too, though not freezing cold.
 The next morning we flew to Cairns, which was about a 2 hour flight to the northeast from Alice Springs.

A Trip to Indonesia- Java and Komodo

After a few nights in Bali we flew to Yogyakarta- mainly we wanted to see Borobudor and Pranbanam sites and the areas around the city.  We had to get up very early in the morning in Bali to allow extra time to get to the airport due to unpredictable traffic in Bali.  It turned out that the traffic was no issue so early in the morning!  The security and boarding for the flight was fine, and the flight was also fine.  In Yogya, we were met by out guide "Yoga" and Driver- Mr. Tomo who served us well for the next 4 days.  The Hindu temples at Pranbanam are near the airport so it was easy to go there. The complex was bigger than we expected, and due to school holidays there were large numbers of kids around. The temple were built around 1150 CE and have had a lot of restoration done. There are large amount of stone lying around from the restorations- parts that they did not know where they were from or for smaller features not restored.  It was rainy this morning which made the visit less pleasant.   The temples have steep steps, but we managed to go up a number of them.  The kids outside kept approaching Jim to get their picture taken with him size they rarely see tall people.  They also approached him many times asking certain questions in broken English. After a couple of these he realized there was a pattern to the questions. After quite a few of these an older man came by and said they were his students in English- most were very young so they were to be admired for having courage to approach strangers and try to speak in a strange language, but after 4 or 5 it started to be annoying, but politeness still ruled!   Much of the English teaching took place while Janet explored a temple or two without Jim who hoped to get better pictures if the rain stopped.  We saw only the main complex, but there are others close by, some Buddhist.
We had lunch at a very pleasant place by a stream not far from the temples and then made our way into town to the Phoenix Hotel. The Phoenix is a colonial era hotel that has been modernized and was very pleasant. We walked down a nearby road ro a shopping area, but it was hugely crowded on this day off from work and school.

The next day we made the long drive to Borobodur. Again there were large numbers of young Indonesian kids around in addition to foreign sightseers. The weather was very good- no rain, a few clouds and blue skys, but it was fairly hot in the direct sun and high humidity.  There are ten levels at the this Buddhist temple built around 750 CE and with the crowds it took awhile to get around.  Jim Managed to walk all the way around the upper 7 levels but finely got tired enough to stop.  Janet and Yoga waited atthe bottom after going around 4 or 5 levels.  One is supposed to walk clockwise around these temples, but most of the kids were not told this and they went the other way.
There are some nice views from the heights on such a nice day.   The site was largely buried when it was "discovered" by Raffles around 1813. They did some clearing, but it is a big place and it was mostly restored  over many years around 1970.  It is an amazing structure that had to have required a huge effort to build originally.  The builders realized the structure was not stable and added much stone to make it better, but there were drainage problems that slowly and continuously made it fall into disrepair.
We went to See two other Hindu or Buddhist sites nearby- Mendut Temple and Cowen Temple- these are much smaller and not at all crowded. We also vistied a modern Buddhist Monastery that has very nice sculptures.   We had lunch and road the back roads to our hotel to relax and have dinner.
Our next two days we visited a nice museum in town, saw a shadow puppet maker,  the royal palace and visited some batik makers.   Java is known for exquisite batik cotton and silk, but there is a lot of cheap stuff made for the masses as well. On our last afternoon On Java we rode to the beach on the south coast and watched the sunset. It was a very nice beach with lots of people in the water and having fun.

On Dec. 20 we flew back to Bali where we rejoined most of our luggage and stayed the night at Amandari. The next day we relax went to The Klungung market and attempted to visit Tenganan Village as mentioned earlier and then we boarded our ship for the night.  The next day the ship left Bali for Komodo.

We arrived at Komodo after an overnight at sea.  The harbor looked like a crater of a volcano and probably is.  We joined a lot of other people on the dock and walked to the visitor center.  They take large groups around a mile or so path and end at a small watering hole where 6 or 8 Komodo dragons sit.  They were not too active but two or three did move around. The group at the watering hole were big and we were told were males. After a little while a smaller female walked through the woods to the watering hole.  We watched as she walked through with her long tongue coming out frequently. We were told that the tongue is how they sense smells.   We were very careful around the dragons, but they did not attack anyone. There are rangers around who carry long sticks with a "Y" shape at the end. They use these to keep the dragons from getting too close to people.  It was interesting to see these ancient creatures.
We walked on toward the dock and back to the ship and sailed off toward Australia.

A trip to Bali Dec. 2018

Previously, we wrote a short introduction - giving an outline for our trip. We arrived at the very nice airport in Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia on Dec. 13 after leaving our house on Dec. 11, 2018.   Of course, we were very tired, but probably in better shape than some as we were able to sleep some on the long flights.  The arrival was only marred by the huge lines of people at immigration.  A visa was not required as long as we could show ourselves leaving withing 30 days, but the crowds from 2-3 arriving flights overwhelmed the immigration folks. However we got through, and were met by our driver and guide and went to Amandari, which was a great place to relax.
On our next day we had an arranged itinerary, that we did not really remember, but trusted the guide to have memorized.  As the day went on we realized that something was not quite right as did not seem to be seeing places we expected.  The guide spoke to the office in the afternoon and apologized, because he had not received the correct plan. We saw many handicrafts people as we had put as a secondary interest, but not any of the more major sites. So, our next day was overly full trying to make up for that error.  We saw some great wood carvings, and silver work, less great painting. At one place the kids playing gamelon instruments were the most interesting thing.

We first saw a gamelon performance while also seeing a traditional performance of stories from the ancient past with remarkable costumes.
Next we drove far north to see rice paddies and the volcano that had erupted a month or so earlier (and made us wonder if Bali would be safe- it was!)  Included in that was lunch at a restaurant with a nice view of the volcano- except that it wa scloudy and rainy, so not so great... and food that was edible but not very tasty.
We then drove southwest for a long time to see the "Shore Temple", which is a bigger tourist spot than we might have wished- huge crowds of people from all over Indonesia and the world. It was interesting to see, but we wondered if looking at the huge variety and number of handicrafts people might be more worthwhile.
We had to get up very early the next day to take a flight to Yogykarta- in central Java.  We were going there for 4 nights, so be left much of our luggage in Bali while we went. It was hard getting up so early in order to catch a 7AM flight, but the roads were a lot less crowded with traffic at that hour. We decided to fly in business class to get better seats and no hassles over luggage.
The next installment of this will be about Java, but after 4 nights there we returned to Bali and the Amandari resort.  Our flight from Yogykarta was not quite so early, but we still got back to Bali in the morning on Dec. 20, 2018
That day we saw the Klungung textile market-  we were told that this is a very busy place  early in the morning- it is really aimed at wholesale- sales to smaller and bigger shops who then sell to the public.  However, we found most of the dealers to be present and we were overwhelmed by the huge numbers of weavings available, but underwhelmed by the variety and quality of what we saw-  most looked like it was meant for mass consumption, while we were more interested in special pieces.
After we left the market we were to go the Tenganan village (spelling might be wrong). This is a place that is somewhat protected from outsiders because it has an ancient history, but they do traditional weaving, so we thought it would be interesting.  However, the road to get there was crawling with traffic and it was the only road!  We crawled at a mile or 2 and hour for an hour or so and finally decided to turn around and go back.  A few vehicles from the other dirction came through and said there was road work going on a few miles ahead.  We were a little disappointed, but happy to get out of the traffic. We visited a book shop and relaxed at the resort awhile instead.
The next day, Dec. 21 we transferred from the resort to our ship that would be our home for most of the next couple weeks or so.
The ship stayed in Bali the night of Dec. 21 and left the evening of Dec. 22, so we had the day of the 22nd in Bali.

Janet to a Balinese cooking class while Jim used our driver and guide to visit a couple textile shops and to return to the resort to pick up something that Janet had left behind.  He considered going to Tenganan Village, but decided it was too far anbd probably still jammed with traffic.    He did visit a craftsman who makes the puppets and costumes used in some of the traditional shows- like the one we saw some days earlier. The amount work done in places like this is remarkable and the quality of what they produce is also remarkable.

A Trip to Bali, Java , Komodo and Australia- Introduction

In 2018 we decided to sign up for a cruise we had been considering for at least 3 years.  There have usually been a couple each winter in North American terms (Dec- Apr.) - either starting in Bali and ending in Sydney or vice- versa.  We thought that taking a newer ship and covering Christmas and New Year Holidays would be a nice way to start the winter by getting away from the shortest days of the year and some cold weather.   The Cruise portion started Dec. 21 in Bali. We wanted to see some of Bali and also wanted to see some of the very old Hindu and Buddhist temples near Yogyakarta ( we learned it is pronounced "JoogJakarta" or "jogja" for short.  We made arranged with "Asian Trails" who have offices in Bali and Java-  we worked with them in Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam 3 times in the past and have been happy with them.  We arranged our flights- partly using frequent flyer miles to get from New York to Bali via Hong Kong in business class on Cathay Pacific. The seat went flat for sleeping on the long trip to Hong Kong, so this was good.  We were met in Bali after going through their somewhat painful immigration process. There do not require a visa for stays less than 30 days but we had to show a plane ticket of ship confirmation to get in and the lines were LONG.  We later learned that since were are over 65, we could have taken a shorter line, but this was not at all clear at the airport.
Our driver and guide were waiting for us at the exit of the airport and we took the somewhat long ride to our hotel. Janet picked "Amandari"-  a beautiful place.  December is rainy season and "off season" in Bali, so the hotel was fairly empty- which made it even better!  A bit more on this later.
Our plan was to spend 3 nights in Bali, then fly to Jogja for 4 nights, then back to Amadari for 1 night before transfering to our ship on Dec. 21.  This let us leave heavy bags at Amandari and just take our smaller bags with 4 days worth of cloths.  On transfer to our ship on 12/21 we stayed in port overnight and had arranged for a car and driver the next day.  Jim used this while Janet took a Balinese cooking class.  The flights in Indonesia on Garuda Air were fine. We paid for business class to get better leg room.
The Ship was the "Silver Muse". It is only about a year old, holds about 600 people and was full. We sailed from Bali on Dec. 22 and headed for Komodo to see the dragons and then sailed south to Darwin, Australia.  Northern Australia gets quite a lot of rain in the wet season.  We decided to sign up for a 4 night inland journey- off the ship for 4 nights- 3 of which were days at sea as the ship went from Darwin to Cairns.   We stayed one night in a hotel in Darwin after spending the day visiting Litchfield National Park and some sights around Darwin. We flew early the next morning to Alice Springs in the middle of the country where it is very hot and dry.  We did not go to Uluru- Ayers Rock, but s Swiss Family of 6 made special arrangements to go there while 10 others of us stayed around Alice Springs.  We stayed 2 nights in Alice then flew to Cairns. The ship was not in yet so we stayed in a nice hotel one night and saw some sights that day. The next day we did more sighte=seeing, but one scenic railroad was closed due to rock slides 10 days before.  It rained heavily in Cairns too- very heavy- The next day we saw more sights (in the rain) and then re- joined the ship on New Years Eve.
Other ports wer Townsville, the Whitsunday Islands, Brisbane and then ending in Sydney. We had 3 night scheduled in Sydney and were to fly to Hawaii for 3 nights to break up the trip home, but when we arrived in Sydney we got clear word that Ziggy was not doing well, so we spent a couple hours rearranging, flights and hotels to arrive home on Friday Jan. 11 instead of the 13th, so we go to see Ziggy and see that he was in bad shape.
The 12- 16 hour time difference in addition the the climate difference has made it difficult to adjust to being back in New York State where it has been cold the past week and we expect heavy snow tomorrow too!
More details and some photos to follow in next sections.

In Memoriam: Ziggy Dec. 2004- Jan. 2019

The very sweet and gentle Ziggy Died Jan. 11, 2019. He was not well over the past couple years with allergies to some foods being discovered and then he developed lymphoma.  His health was ok but he was getting weaker when Jim and Janet left for Indonesia and Australia on Dec. 11. He got weaker while we were away- faster than expected. We returned a couple days early with hope he would be well enough to go home, but he had difficulty breathing and was clearly suffering so we decided it was better for him to go.    His sister Zoe seems in good health at present, but she is disturbed to find that he is not around.