Good Bye Indonesia

October 29, 2013

Nothing like spending 5 days at a 5 star resort to say good bye to Indonesia in style.  Our last stop of the rally, our last gala dinner, our last traditional dance - all took place at the 5 star Nirwana Resort on Bintan Island, where we were allowed to stay as guests and use the facilities for free before sailing on to Malaysia.  It wasn't "real" Indonesia by any means, but it was still nice to have several days of just relaxing and hanging out with our friends from other boats.

On our way to Bintan we crossed the equator and had an equator party.  Gotta pay respect to Trident.

Check out our latitude!!!

It's a tough life!

Here is where we spent most of our 5 days. (You can see our boat anchored off the resort on the left through the trees!)

Sam, our Indo government contact and all over amazing guy, sailed to Bintan on this colorful traditional sailing boat.  270 miles on this boat . . . and we definitely sailed through storms.

The best gala dinner yet!

Does this guy look familiar?  We met Peter on our second stop in Alor where we hung out with his family for a few days!  He was singing in the band tonight!

Great minds think alike!  Tom (Big Sur, CA), Christoph (Germany), and Omar looking good!

Clement, our new crew member sitting on the right, has been teaching us how to slack line.  So far my personal best is  4 steps on the line.

Our favorite yatchies, a family of 5 from Washington, and us Tropicbird crew at the Keylong Restaurant for a fancy night out.  (The family Bill, Becky, Joey, Raymond and Melody have been sailing 2.5 years nows!)

The resort had a full bowling ally!  (And a life size chess board, but I didn't take a picture.)

And it had elephants of course!  I wouldn't pay to see the show or ride them - vegan principles and all, but they let us visit the elephants for pictures and hugs.

Our friends on Water Musik are not joining the Sail Malaysia Rally with us so we had a goodbye dinner on our boat.

A vegan sushi dinner that is!  Yum!

We had to cross the Singapore shipping channel - CRAZY!!!  Just to give you an idea of the boat mayhem we had to weave through!!!

Miss me?

Selamat Jalan Indonesia

This is the end of the Sail Indonesia Rally 2013. The rally ended at the beautiful resort Nirwana Gardens located in Bintan Island. It’s hard to believe it has been three months already in Indonesia, but we loved every minute of it. 

 

 On our way to Bintan we crossed the equator. Good old sailor lore dictates that a celebration be made for our first crossing and that a toast toTriton be made, so we obliged.

 

Upon arrival at Nirwana Gardens we were received with a feast to the eyes as well as our tummies. Some of the best food we have had in Indonesia.

 

There were dances for our entertainment as well.

 

 The dances are tightly weaved into Indonesian culture and tell stories such as wives waiting for their fisherman husbands to arrive back safely and bountiful.

 

With some free time I decided to try the slack line. It was fun, but I am going to have to put in a lot of time to get good at it.

 

Monitor lizards roamed the grounds and were found swimming in the pools. This fellow was confined though.

 

Ali enjoying paradise on earth.

 

One of the bars at the resort was located over the water. Too bad we couldn’t afford to buy any drinks, the resort amenities were beyond our budget :(

 

The resort had elephants so we went to say hi to them.

 

This is what an elephant in your face feels like. This one just wanted bananas.

 

So I gave her some. She was very sweet and gentle.

 

Goodbye friends. I leave you with an artsy photo from the beautiful gardens in the resort. See you in Malaysia.

 

Getting some HUNNY

In what can only be described as an episode from Winnie the Pooh I decided that I wanted to get some honey and was willing to get up close and personal with it. 

First we found the hive. The guide kindly showed it to us and gave us some small amount of netting to protect ourselves. 

Note the hive is a wild hive and the bees are significantly bigger than your average honey bee in North America. 

The beekeeper then proceeded to smoke the hive to get access to the delicious honey trapped in it. This is where things went wrong. The smoked out bees were angry and I was up close and personal just to get you these amazing pictures. I am looking through my view finder  when my hand felt like it was being stabbed by an ice pick. In the commotion of getting the bee off my hand, my head netting fails and lets a bee inside my personal space resulting in me getting stung on the nose. This is followed by me running like a mad man thru the jungle away from the hive. The score:

We got some honey. I mean honey comb and everything. Not quite a fair deal for the bees.

The bees got some revenge though. Ali had to pull that stinger from my nose and two other from my hand. 

My face fared well but my hand did not. The next day I had to find a doctor. Other than getting an antihistamine I just had to tough it out for a couple of days. They recommended ice but we could not find any on the small village we were at and our boat has no refrigeration. So I just had to wait it out. 

Lesson learned, use a zoom lens when dealing with bees.

Now I am off to enjoy my honey.

Batu Beriga

We were received in Batu Beriga with a warm welcome and a lunch at the village chief's house.

 

The traditional lunch was not vegan friendly, but our hosts certainly were friendly.

 

After lunch there was a dancing and singing competition with awards and prizes. All teams were in brightly colored traditional outfits.

 

And of course they love to take photos with Ali :)

  

Once the competition was over the rave started. All the kids from the village came out to dance!

  

And dance we did.

 

This is our host family. The village was so small there were no accommodations. So they gave us a bedroom and allowed us to stay in their house. They also fed us breakfast and dinner and since they spoke no English we had lots of fun communicating with each other.

 

With a full moon the night was over and we went to rest.

  

The madness started right away, kids out first thing in the morning with more energy than we had after two cups of white Kopi, our latest addiction.

 

We went for a tour and were provided lunch. There was a tour of the jungle and honey making activities but there is more to come about the bees on a separate post.

   

The dancing competition continued on the second night. It was quite a colorful treat.

 

But the colors didn't stop. The next morning was a mass wedding involving a small parade and 36 couples.

  

Here is the bride and groom in traditional attire. After the wedding we headed back to the boat with the biggest goodbye yet. The crowds were so big we had to be escorted by the police to the beach to make our way to the boats. I cannot describe how amazing the Indonesians are and what great hosts they are. 

 

 

Welcome to Belitung

Belitung received us with some capricious weather that changed as fast as a teenage girl's mood and was just as dramatic as well. 

 

Our arrival was almost surreal and calm after rainy weather.

 

The village of Belitung was the classic fishing village with perfect beaches.  They went all out in decorations preparing for our arrival.

 

One of the events we got to see is a whipping fight. It is actually pretty complicated with rules, turns and traditions. Here you can see the champion whipper deflecting a stoke from his opponent with cat like reflexes. They are only allowed to strike the back.

 

For some unknown reason Matt stood up and challenged the Champion to a duel! The champion said, "bring it on crazy gringo!"

 

Of course it did not bode well for Matt's back. 

 

The best friends are random friends. We met Winda walking down the beach and next thing we know we are doing karaoke.

 

The next day we went to a river in the jungle to go tubing. The water flow was really low so it ended up being tubing/river trekking but it was a fun day none the less.

 

I found some wild ladies in the jungle. 

 

Our Indonesian friends came to visit us in our safari tent and prepared a feast for us, put on some tunes, and had a great time.

 

Out in the jungle we went looking for a tarsier. We found this little guy after some searching around.

  

Finally we departed Belitung with its capricious weather that made for beautiful photographs. I wish we could have stayed a few more days.