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Lombok

Posted by Mark Sullivan on March 9, 2014
Posted in: Indonesia. Leave a Comment

We've been mostly just staring at this for four days

We’ve been mostly just staring at this for four days

After a blissful week in Bali we hopped a quick 25-minute flight to the neighboring island of Lombok. Here we checked into a pleasant resort for four days. Four days later, we can report something quite unusual for us: We’ve never left the resort.

For four days we’ve looked at the scene in the picture above. Who needs to leave that? On occasion we do actually get up from our loungers to cool off — sometimes in the pool and sometimes in that beautiful turquoise sea. It can be hard to decide.

We usually like to leave hotels and wander into town, at least for dinner. But this place is a little too perfect to even bother. We have breakfast at little tables set right at the edge of the sea. We have a pleasant lunch at one of the two elegant but reasonably-priced restaurants. And every night we’ve eaten in the bar, where they offer an amazing multi-course Thai dinner that changes each night. With a bottle of cheap Balinese rosé, it’s a formula worth repeating.

We have a total of 6 1/2 weeks in Indonesia, so in theory we would move east and visit lots more islands in this huge archipelago. But in reality we don’t think we’re going to get much beyond Bali and Lombok. Today we will wander slightly further to spend four days on Gili Trawangan, a tiny island just off the coast of Lombok. And then we think the main question will be whether to linger on in beautiful Lombok or head back to magical Bali. We can’t think of a compelling reason to do anything else for a while.

The day starts with breakfast by the sea

The day starts with breakfast by the sea

The Cat City

Posted by Mark Sullivan on February 20, 2014
Posted in: Malaysia. 1 comment
An "exhibit" at the Cat Museum

An “exhibit” at the Cat Museum

A giant feline-themed seal of the city adorns the ornate public building that houses the Cat Museum, among other things

A giant feline-themed seal of the city adorns the ornate public building that houses the Cat Museum, among other things

We intended to stay in Kuching for three days but extended to five. We just loved the combination of adventure activities and nice urban nightlife — to say nothing of the fact that Kuching is known as “The Cat City” and even features its own Cat Museum.

A small sampling of the numerous "artifacts" at the Cat Museum

A small sampling of the numerous “artifacts” at the Cat Museum

The Cat Museum is on the far north end of town, quite a way from the center, but we decided to try to walk there anyhow, just to see whatever was there. It took us about an hour and a half to get there, which is a little crazy since I’d read that the place was “extremely kitsch” and “good for about 20 minutes.”

So kitsch is what we intended to see, and kitsch is what we got. I had feared that they’d try to sneak in some kind of “legitimate” exhibits about cats — maybe something about different types of cats or how cats adapt to different geographies. But I needn’t have feared anything like that. In fact, the use of the work “museum” was a pretty big stretch. It was more like a big collection of random cat junk — cat figurines, movie posters that feature cats, cat plates, cat posters.

A warning before we hit the trail at Bako National Park. I learned what it was about toward the end of the day as I was sipping water and chatting with a Danish friend as she ate a late lunch, when suddenly a monkey pounced on the table and decimated her lunch.

A warning before we hit the trail at Bako National Park. I learned what it was about toward the end of the day as I was sipping water and chatting with a Danish friend as she ate a late lunch, when suddenly a monkey pounced on the table and decimated her lunch.

Of course it was organized into thematic sections like “Cats in Movies” (the movie posters), “Cat Naps” (pictures of cute felines napping), and even “Cat Food” (random packages of cat food). “Cats in Cards” included a wall covered in greeting cards and postcards that feature cats, along with a description of how millions of cards with cats crisscross the globe every year.

Having hit our limit of cultural intake at the Cat Museum, we spent our final day in Kuching at the beautiful Bako National Park just outside town, where a hot, humid, strenuous hike rewarded us with a stunning beach. Then we caught a flight to Bandar Seri Bagawan, the capital of the Sultanate of Brunei, which we will report on next.

On the hiking trail at Bako National Park

On the hiking trail at Bako National Park

Arriving at our first view of our gorgeous beach destination at Bako National Park

Arriving at our first view of our gorgeous beach destination at Bako National Park

Jim gets carried away at the Cat Museum

Jim gets carried away at the Cat Museum

Thai Beaches

Posted by Mark Sullivan on January 10, 2014
Posted in: Thailand. Leave a Comment

What we're looking at for most of January -- at our current stop in Bang Saphan, Thailand.

What we’re looking at for most of January — at our current stop in Bang Saphan, Thailand.

After all the excitement of our two-week holiday bicycle tour of Myanmar, we’ve slowed the pace way down. Biking in Myanmar was exhilarating, exotic, and truly memorable. But after two weeks of hard work, group meals, fun conversation, and moving around a lot we were ready to take it back down a notch.

And what better way to do that than to spend most of January beach hopping in Thailand? So just after the New Year we flew back to Bangkok and began a Southward odyssey of beach stops along the Thai peninsula.

Last week we got the exciting news that my dad and my brother John will meet us in Singapore on January 29 for a couple weeks of travel together, probably in Malaysia. So we shopped around and found a couple cheap flights to Singapore from Krabi, Thailand, and decided to fill out he rest of January with more Thai beach stops. That means a few more weeks of long, uneventful days, warm blue ocean, amazing Thai food, and plentiful cheap massage. That kind of January beats the icy mess back home!

The view from our last stop in Pran Buri, Thailand

The view from our last stop in Pran Buri, Thailand

And on rare occasions one can find a good cocktail -- here in Hua Hin, Thailand.

And on rare occasions one can find a good cocktail — here in Hua Hin, Thailand.