Applying for a visa

Well, we applied for a visa for Australia yesterday. Actually, Carla applied for a student visa, as she was accepted into a Juris Doctor (Master of Laws) program at University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) and Monash University. She chose to go to UTS, as it is a more practical program.

We filled out the visa application online. It was super easy. On Monday, we will go to see a doctor to complete medical examination, and that should be it. If any further documents are needed, we can scan them and submit them online. I am really impressed by how easy Australia has made this process.

We are now trying to figure out all the things that need to be done in the next month, as we will most likely be leaving Canada by the end of June. We have already started looking for places in Sydney. Expensive! But I am sure that we will find something suitable and affordable.

I will let you know when we hear more about the visa. Enjoy the slideshows that I had just emailed. If you did not receive them, send me an email and I will resend them to you.

I am getting pretty good at quickly adjusting to living in other people's houses. The hardest thing though is figuring out where people keep their measuring cups, as there is really no good standard for that. :-) It is pretty hard to make oatmeals right without a measuring cup.

I am feeling a bit better today. Yesterday, I felt like a zombie, but I made sure not to sleep during the day. We ended up catching up on our favourite TV shows (Grey's Anatomy, The Unit, Brothers and Sisters, House). When you are away for four weeks, you get to miss quite a few episodes.

We went to the Superstore yesterday, and I noticed how much cheaper food is in Canada compared to Australia. Well, maybe it's just Superstore, as I remember going to Loblaws or Loeb and noticing how those two stores were much more expensive than the Superstore.

I actually missed Quizno's. They make really good subs. The Subway used to be my favourite, but after so many years, and after trying Quizno's, I can't go to the Subway anymore.

I am still sorting through all my pictures from the trip. 1,300 pictures! It will take a bit to get it all organized, captioned and nicely ordered. But when it's done, it will be worth it!

Back to the Great White North - brrrrr!

I am getting on a plane in Adelaide in about 30 minutes for the flight to Sydney, Vancouver, Toronto, and eventually, Ottawa.

Once in Ottawa, I will have time to prepare slideshows from all our trips in Southeast Asia. Other than that, I will be spending time with Carla, and try to catch up with friends. We are still working on our next move. Once things are firmed up I will let everyone know. Until then, stay tuned!

Back at last

Well, that was a 'fun' return trip. Spent a night at the airport in Kuala Lumpur, and then the following night in Melbourne. I think I got about 1.5 hrs combined of sleep over the past couple of nights. Not good at all.

First thing I did when I got off a plane in Melbourne was to go into a washroom and admire the cleanliness of the washroom and the availability of sit down toilettes. Sometimes, it's the simplest things that will make you happy. Trust me, after using squatting toilletes for weeks (even at higher-end malls), you appreciate the little 'luxuries.'

I have only a few days here in Adelaide and then it's back on the plane and across the Equator once again. At least the flight to Canada should have good movies on it. Nothing worse than an 8-hour flight and no entertainment. Well, I guess a 14-hour with no entertainment is worse, but you get my point.

I will try and get the pictures organized and send them out in stages, as I am sure that nobody wants to or has the time to look over the picture of our 6 different destinations all at once. This way, I will at least be able to keep the suspense going. See, I did learn something from the writers of 24. Jack Bauer can get all the baddies in once episode, but then how much fun would that be. In the same way, I could send out just one slideshow, but this way I will be able to entertain you for weeks. :-)

Well, it's off to bed for me. And a real bed this time, not an airport bench or floor. Ahh, the little 'luxuries' of life that we stopped appreciating long time ago but that bring so much joy. :-)

Last day in KL - or so I thought

Today was our last day in KL. This time around, we enjoyed KL much
more than the last time. It helped that our hotel was located very
close to a monorail station, so we could quickly get to our
destinations.

We visited the Berjaya Times Square mall, and what a mall it is. It
is 10 storeys high, with a zillion stores and restaurants, plus a
movie theater and a large theme park. Crazy!

The movie theater was really inexpensive (11 RM = CDN 4) so we went
and saw Angels and Demons (very good) and the new Star Trek
(excellent). Carla als got a massage and a haircut as these services
are quite a bit cheaper.

There has been kind of a confusion about my flight back to Canada, so
I am now stuck at the airport in KL. Tomorrow morning I will have to
book a new ticket to Melbourne, but due to the flight from KL arriving
late into Melbourne, I will have to spend another night at the
airport. I will only get to Adelaide on Tuesday. Bah!

Civilized place

After spending six days on a tiny island, it is nice to be in a big city with all the amenities just around the corner. Shops, restaurants and entertainment. It is all here.

Yesterday, we took one of those hop-on hop-off buses and toured the city. We saw Chinatown, Litle India, Central Business District, Orchard St and many other areas. Singapore is a very clean, organized and orderly city. My kind of place. :-)

Today, we went and saw '17 Again' and enjoyed it very much. It was really funny. The movie tickets were only SGD7 (CDN5.6). At that price, I am willing to go to the cinema.

Tomorrow, we plan to visit the Singapore Zoo and the riverbank, and the day later we go back to Kuala Lumpur.

After travelling through so many different places on this trip, it is nice to be in a city where you can safely cross a street without dodging cars and motorcycles from all directions. Food places are also very clean, roads are very oganized and everything seems so clean. The city is easy to get around and the bathrooms are the best in Asia! You laugh, but after you've seen what I've seen, you start to appreciate a washroom with a sit down toillete, clean bathrooms and soap! Ahh, civilization! :-)

Singapore, at last!

Today was another one of those days where we have had to spend most of the day switching between different modes of transportation. First we took a boat from the island, then a 50 minute taxi ride to the airport, a quick flight took us to KL where we had to take a bus from the airport for a one-hour ride to the Puduraya bus station in KL. From KL it was a 5 hour bus ride to Singapore. We finished off the whole journey with a taxi ride to our comfy hotel room (Hotel Re) in Singapore. Long day!

Perhentian Besar island was amazing. Snorkeling was superb since there were huge coral reefs only meters away from the beach. A plethora of fish of all shape, sizes and colours was on display, swimming around the coral reefs.

I felt adventurous so I went for a couple of scuba dives, with full gear and all. On my second dive I descended to a depth of 12 meters to 'swim with the fish.' It was an amazing experience and, though I would not recommend diving to everyone, I can see myself getting a full certification myself later on. The feeling of being surrounded by different sea life and seeing the wonderful and amazing coral formations is definitely something else.

Carla and I intend to spend our time in Singapore visiting the local zoo, going hiking, visiting local sights and maybe going to the large waterpark that they have here. On the 15th we go back to KL and then on the 17th we fly back home.

Accessing internet was really expensive on the island so we kept our comms to a minimum. We should be able to connect more frequently while in Singapore. I want to post notes of our experience on the blog but will have to do the details once I come back home. I do hope that some of my notes and recollections will pass on the travel bug and entice you to visit this part of the world, as it has a lot to offer.

In Perhentians

This is the first chance we had to access the internet since we arrived on Perhentian Besar island and thought it might be a good idea to let you all know that we are doing ok. This is true island vacationing. Few cabins along the beach with a rustic looking restaurnt and that is it. The water is amazingly clear. I am really looking forward to going snorkeling in the next few days.

Yesterday was a busy day for us. Up at 6 am, we had breakfast and took a tuk tuk to the airport. We flew out of Siem Reap on AirAsia and arrived in Kuala Lumpur two hours later. As soon as we arrived at the airport, we checked in for our next flight to Kota Bharu. The flight was to leave in an hour and a half so we had enough time to grab something to eat at the airport.

Flight to Kota Bharu took about 55 uneventful minutes. Once off the plane, we met a couple from Holland and shared a taxi with them to Kuala Besut. From there, we had to took a crazy speedboat to Perhentian Besar. That was quite a bumpy 50-minute ride, with splashes of salty water hitting our sweaty faces way too frequently.

Once on the island, we got a room for the first night at the Abdul Chalet and shortly thereafter found out that the island was pretty much booked up for the weekend. Yikes! As soon as we checked in, we went down the beach to other chalets to see if anyone had any rooms available. Out of eight 'resorts', only one place had a room available for the weekend, at a steep price nonetheless, but it sure beat sleeping on the beach. As harmless as sleeping on the beach at night sounds, with all the mosquitos, fire ants and monitor lizards, I would not try it myself.

We are staying at our first room for three nights and will then move to the other, more luxurious, resort. 11th of May is our last day here. We fly back to Kuala Lumpur, but we don't know where we are going next. Most likely Singapore.

I will have to write a summary of our visit to Cambodia and Angkor Wat a bit later. It was a really interesting visit.

Hot times in Siem Reap

We are currently in Siem Reap, Cambodia and it is bloody hot here! Hot and humid, with temperatures over 30 and the humidex in the high 30s. It is probably the hottest place we've been to.

Yesterday morning, Carla fainted during breakfast and I spent all day beside here making sure that it was just a heat stroke and not something else. At the same time, she was having stomach issues so that had me worried too. I was going to fetch a doctor at a first sign of something weird happening to her. Between all my first aid courses, House and Greys Anatomy episodes, and the internet, I felt I would be able to nurse Carla back to health or know when it is time to call a doctor.

In the evening, I went to get us some grub, especially the electrolyte replenishing kind. It was, again, so hot out there, plus I had to keep telling tuk tuk drivers to sod off as they kept offering rides. It was a good thing that I was wearing trainers or my feet would have been really muddy by the end. I think that they have not caught on on the benefits of building sidewalks.

At the store, I loaded up on an electrolyte drink, yoghurt, bananas, chips, pineapple; pretty much all the things with the required electrolytes. The store carried a lot of western food so that helped the situation.

Carla is feeling better today. Not 100% but better than yesterday. We will try and take it easy today. Not as easy as yesterday, as we pretty much spent the whole day in our hotel room, but that was necessary.

In case you were wondering why I was using so many British words in this post (bloody, grub, trainers...) there are two reasons. First, I have just finished reading a third book written by a British author, so that vocabulary is still stuck in my head. Second, I am 'Australianising' my vocabulary, to better fit in once we move there. :-)