tirsdag 30. september 2008

No mangopicking?

So, turns out the farmers in Australia are a little bit unsure wther they need us or not.. So we kind of still have a job, but they don't know when we can start.. So we have been waiting for some time, and fell we don't have more time to wait(well, we don't, K has got no money..)so we're maybe going to work on a tourist resort in Kakadu National Park instead.. Just have to say yes, but it is 6 weeks or more with cleaning.. Maybe not so interesting.. heheh;)
I guess we will take it! And then we get to see Kakadu too, yeah!
I will keep you updated..
g

mandag 29. september 2008

Mangopicking and packing!

We have got a job! In a few days we're leaving Darwin, going to a farm in Arnhemland, really far from everything, to pick and pack mango for a month! I guess there will be no such thing as internet and so on, so have a great Octobermonth everyone!! We'll write more when we come back, just remember that we're having a good time, and that we haven't disappeared from the surface of the earth, we're just a little far away;)
We'll tell you everything about mango when we get back to sivilization! In the meantime, have a great time!
g

søndag 28. september 2008

Australia - Darwin

We have been australians since Wednesday! And we're having a good time, searching internet and using payphones and trying to get a job.. So far no luck, but today it is Monday, and we're giving it another try! Nothing happens in Darwin during the weekends, at least not on the jobfront, so we have had a few days of, been couchsurfing, great experience as always, we're going back there tomorrow to spend another night:) (Due to many backpackers there is not so easy to find room, so we have to book in advance, and pay, and we can't get the money back, so we have already paid for this night in a hostel, even though our hosts, wonderful family, would like us to stay longer.. But we're going back tomorrow night, yeah!)
On Sunday we were couchsurfing, as I already told you, and they know everything around here, so they told us about a great museum, and we spent 5 hours there, looking at aboriginal art and history of northern territory and a lot of dangerous animals!!!! And after we went to the night market at Mindil beach and ate kangaroo, crocodile, emu and camel(dromedar, med en hump denne gangen, var kamel med to humper vi spiste i mongolia..) None of it was that good, but it was funny!
Got to run and find a job!
have a good week:)
g

mandag 22. september 2008

Details - Indonesia

Just so you don't think we're not having a good time, I will give you some details(the last 4 times or so I wrote, I might have told you more about scams and endless busrides, than anything else..)

- Indonesian houses have the best colours ever, all in pastell(english?), light pink, light blue, pale green, purple, orange, you name it.. And of course the fence in front of the house is not in the same colour at all, maybe a mint green this time, or turqiose... It is a little bit like in Kenya, in the rural parts at least..
- The roads are far better than in Africa though..
-We have seen tobaccoleaves left out to dry almost everywhere, strangest place so far: A footballfield covered, hehehe, quite a sight!
- The Java coffee is not at all like home, and not so good either, maybe these people have to give away all their good coffee to western countries? Horrible..
-For the first time since China, we have been stopped by strangers who wanted pictures with us;)
-Everywhere there is a huge smile and a friendly hello!

And the last week at Bali: Well we haven't done much.. Beach, sun, eating in restaurants 3 or 4 times a day, reading books and doing nothing.. It is like a small vacation from all the traveling:) And it is so so good! And soon boring, so tomorrow is the last day, we have got tickets for a flight to Darwin, Australia tomorrow night.. That is our first flight, we made it all the way from Oslo, Norway to Denpasar, Bali,Indonesia overland, AND WE ARE SO PROUD OF OURSELVES!!!!

And now we're looking for work in Australia, short on money, yeah!

That's all:)
g

mandag 15. september 2008

Mt.Bromo-Denpasar-Kuta(Bali)

We bought tickets from the hotel even though it smelled a little of scam again, but some other tourists said the price sounded fair, so we thought we should go for it! Paid for aircon bus from Probolinggo to Denpasar, supposed to take 8 hours total. After 1 hour we had to change bus and all this time we didn't see any tickets.. But we managed to not pay again, and finally got tickets on the new bus, without aircon this time, what a surprise.. And finally it left.. The entire trip took more than 12 hours, including a ferry from Java to Bali, and after we changes buses we didn't have one stop, and no real food only cookies.... When we got to Denpasar, the main city in Bali, it was late, and I was sick, and we had to ask three hotels before we found one with a room.. And then we just slept the entire night. Still not feeling well this morning, haven't had much to eat the last days (Indonesia is not so easy) and tried to eat Balifood for breakfast, which is so spicy, it was total disaster... So we decided not to go to far today, so we left Denpasar and went to Kuta, main tourist spot on Bali, I think, but it was only one hour in minibus, so we managed:) Found a nice hotel and have been drinking a lot of fruitjuice to get well as soon as possible! And here there are more restaurants than people, so now we won't go hungry anymore, yeah!!
So now we're staying here a few days, relaxing on the beach before flying to Australia (can't find a boat...)
And now I'm hungry again,so I'm off..
It has happened a lot since Kuala Lumpur, this was the main events, I guess..
g

Surabaya-Probolinggo-Mt. Bromo

The nighttrain left Jakarta at 6 pm, and while waiting for it we saw other trains passing, and we were so glad we had tickets on bisnisclass and not economy.. Some of the trains that passed us were so full people were hanging out the doors.. On one train, even the roof was full, on all of the carriages.. So things are a little different here from Malaysia and Thailand, it is much poorer and things work different.. Like with the ferry, we stayed alone in a 6 bed room, but every hall and stairway was covered with people.. So people are poorer, the country is poorer, and everything takes time..
Same with the nighttrain(the ferry was 5 hours late), it took 11 hoursfrom Jakarta to Surabaya, there we changed trainstation and got tickets to Probolinggo and from there to Bromo, bought it all in one, and it was a scam, but not the worst..Someone picked us up at the station in Probolinggo and drove us to a tourist agency, and he tried every trick in the book to sell us acommodation and tours and tickets back and everything, but we didn't buy anything and finally he stopped and let us go.. We still had to wait 1 hour for the minibus to fill up, when 27 people were inside, outside and on the roof of the car, the driver started, hehehe! It took us 1 1/2 hours to get to Cemon Lewang, a small village right on the craterwall(?) of a vulcano... We saw the sunset from the crater of Mt. Bromo, and active vulcano, the first we have ever seen, and the smell is horrible! Like geysirs on Iceland! (Lukter skikkelig svovel, svir helt ned i lungene!!)
These mountains are about 2770 meters above sealevel, so it was really cold, and even with sleepingbags and wollensweater I frose the entire night. Didn't sleep too much anyways, we got up at 4 am to go to a viewpoint to see the sunset and another vulcano, and we just made it, ten minutes past 5 the sun rose and the view was fantastic! Pictures coming on flickr any day now:)
We went back after a while of intense photographing;) and had a lousy breakfast at the hotel, before we left Mt. Bromo.. Which is another long story, coming right up:)
g

Ferry to Jakarta - Bogor

So, for the ferry we got economyclass tickets, as we thought that would be fine. Turns out then you have to sleep on the floor, in the stairs or whereever you can find room.. And they don't serve food to economyclass.. And in the restaurant you can only buy cookies and coffee.. Luckily we met Erkan from Turkey, and he helped us (bribing) our way up to second class, so we got a room and food 3 times a day! Perfect! K should tell this story, he went with Erkan and was told not to speak, and shook hands with two different officers on the boat and gave money under the table literally! And then we got the key and food and everything was fine! Except we didn't have anymore cash, so we couldn't by drinking water, the food wasn't at all good, but at least we had food, so the 27 hour long trip on the boat was not the best 27 hours of ours lives.. I guess economyclass would have been worse.. But we made it, slept and read a lot and felt groggy, but finally we arrived in Jakarta late at night! And Erkan helped us again, he invited us to stay in his house, and his wife picked us up in their car (after a motorbikeride I don't want to write about, with heavy backpacks and crazy drivers in Jakartas trafficjam late at night) and we all went to an Indonesian restaurant and had lovely fish, and I got chili in the wrong pipe and started crying in front of our new friends, and then we went to their house, in Bogor, it was quite a big house, he is a businessman, and she, Devy, lovely woman, is a teacher at the university, and we stayed one night in the guestroom, thank you so much for everything, Erkan and Devy!!
Next day Erkan drove us back to Jakarta, one hour from Bogor, and we spend 3 hours in the trainstation to get tickets for the nighttrain, and finally we got it, and then we only had time to see the National Monument, which is really next door to the Gambir trainstation, and then we left Jakarta.. Heard it is nothing much to see there anyways:)
And the trainride is another story, again..
g

Kuala Lumpur - Johor Bahru

We did spend a few days in KL again, with Taylor and Ayumi, ate a lot of vegetarian food and tried several times to apply for a working holiday visa in Australia, finally we managed and now we have big plans to get rich fast in Australia, hahaha!
We saw just one movie on the KLCC cinema this time in KL, but we were there mostly to pick up Kristoffers camera, but the camerashop was closed both on Saturday and Sunday.. So we hung around and had a good time, and went to KL Tower (4th highest tower in the world..)to see the sunset, and stuff like that. Ate a lot of Indian food too, it is so so good!!
On Monday the camerashop was finally open, and we picked up the camera.. But the lady was really sorry and said that it couldn't be fixed, that they hadn't repaired it.. So we took the camera and didn't pay anything.. And strangely enough, the camera works perfectly! And when he delivered it for repairing, nothing worked, it was dead.. Strange.. And it is still working.. AMAZING PHOTOSHOP!
Last night with Taylor and Ayumi, this time for sure, and we sang karaoke!!! Hehehe!Tuesday morning they left early, and we left a few hours later, heading for Johor Bahru. 4 hours busride, then we had to take a local bus, but it didn't go exactly where we thought, so we had to walk a little bit before we found next local bus, which took us to the ferryterminal. We got tickets and went to Batam, Indonesia:) Arrived in the evening, got our visa, even though we had to smile as pretty as we could since we didn't have the right USD, we had a bill from 1996, he only wanted from 2006.. But everything goes with a smile, and into Indonesia we got:)
Spend one night in Batam, no tourists there and nothing happening.. Ate a lousy breakfast Wednesday morning and bought tickets for the ferry to Jakarta.. Which is a good story..
Coming up:)
g

fredag 5. september 2008

Mersing and Tioman island:)

So, after the scary fingerprint registrating in Singapore, we came into Malaysia again, and Johor Bahru, the boarding town. We tried to find a bus to Mersing, but it was holiday, so all the buses was full, and we had to take a local bus to Kota Tingi and then wait an hour and then take another local bus to Mersing, and eventually, it took the entire day, so we lost the last ferry to Tioman Island.. But that was ok, we stayed one night at Omars Guesthouse, the cleanest place we have seen for some time now! And he has worked with Robinson Ekspedisjonen, both the swedish and the norwegian, so he had a lot of funny pictures of half-celebrities from Scandinavia, and some good stories, funny;)
Wednesday morning we took a ferry at 7:30(of course it was delayed..) and arrived at the ABC beach some time around 10 o'clock. Found a cheap ok bungalow and headed for the beach, didn't do anything except laying in the sun and swimming and some snorkeling the entire day, lovely! Thursday was the same, but more cloudy, so we read books and had coffee and cake and a good time;)
Friday we left for KL again, 5 hours on a really cold bus, maybe 14 degrees, too cold, we were freezing when we arrived! Staying at the same place as last time, but different room..And this time we found bedbugs... Many of them.. Think I killed maybe 20 last night before we went to bed, but they just didn't stop coming out of the wall..
So we changed room this morning.. And slept fully dressed the entire night.. Heheh!
So, it is raining in KL, like last time, what to do? Cinema, anyone? Yes please:)
g

Singapore for the weekend!

Last weekend we went to Singapore, like we do occationally;) Or something!
We arrived late Friday afternoon, after some lovely days in Melaka(we actually saw a few museums and ruins and churches and an indian festival and a chinese festival in the streets, a lot was happening there!)
The bordercrossing went well, and the bus took us all the way in to Lavender Street. From there we walked to downtown, looking for 1) a bank, we had no singaporemoney, 2) something to eat, as soon as we could find money to buy something and 3) internet, so we could find our couchsurfinghost for the weekend. We found the bank, and food(luckily, I was so hungry and angry I almost killed someone walking beside me.. You all know him.. Poor guy..) and finally the internet, just to find out it was a misunderstanding, and we suddenly didn't have a place to stay for the weekend.. So we walked for maybe 45 minutes more, and found the guesthouse that was housing our friends, Taylor and Ayumi:) So before we found a place to stay, we had been walking, with our backpacks for 3 hours! Exhausted! Ate and went to bed.
Saturday: Spent the entire day with Taylor and Ayumi, was at Singapore Art Museum, saw some really interesting stuff, I think we spent maybe 6 hours there or something, some of it was really good! Gripping:) And then we had Hokkeido icecream, maybe the best icecream in the world! It was good! And chinese for dinner..
Sunday was similar, indian breaktfast, a big park and a long walk, another museum, Asian Civilisation Museum, also interesting, but I finished maybe 2 hours before the others, not that interesting.. And then we saw Rock On, a Bollywood movie in the night, hilarious!!
Monday K and I went to Orchard Road, the big shopping mall street, a street with shopping malls lining up next to each other! Singapore is a lot about shopping, so we just had to see it, since we were there.. Didn't buy anything, so it went well:) Not that much money left.. Just enough to a cup of coffee and a magazine, and then the day was perfect:)
Tuesday we headed out of Singapore again, and this time we had to press our thumb against a glassplate and it took a picture I guess, so now our fingerprint is registrated in Singapore.. Scary..
g