Goodbye, Australia

Day 45: Travel day

Today, we bid farewell to Australia. We packed up, had a quick bite, and then decided to run around doing a couple of last-minute things (like buying more art!) before going to the airport to catch our flight to Bali via Darwin. We landed at Darwin with about 4 hours to pass and luckily the airport had free internet so we could get some stuff done (like post some really old blogs)!

Then we got our flight to Bali and got a cab to Ubud, our base camp for the next few days. When we arrived in Ubud, it was bustling with tourists – I mean bustling. And this is supposed to be the “quieter” area away from the real tourist spots! Ack!

It was fairly late, and when we checked in to our room, they upgraded us to a deluxe because they had no more standard rooms left. Our room was amazing! It was a little bungalow with a balcony facing a massive statue of Ganesh, and a private gazebo overlooking a rice paddy! The architecture and all of the furniture and art were so beautiful! 

We walked into town to grab a bite to eat but everything was closed, so we opted for an ice cream bar and a bottle of water. It was night when we arrived, so our flashlights came in handy, however Gaurav stepped on a poor little frog (whoops!), as the rice paddies are full of them at night. It was a little traumatic for Rachna, but the frog was still alive… kinda. Now, sleep! Tomorrow, we explore the area and plan our stay here! 

Our bungalow (we saw it in the daylight the next day) 

Getting things done

Day 44: Our last night in Australia

Today was a “get things done” day. We had a long list of things we had to get done before leaving Australia, so we started on our list by first heading to the post office to send back all our winter clothing, since the rest of our trip will be in Southeast Asia, and we won’t be needing them anymore! Afterwards, we grabbed a quick bite to eat, rested a bit, walked around town, and then found a place with an internet connection and booked a couple of things.

Our next destination is Bali, Indonesia, and one of the requirements for entry is proof of departure. After our experience trying to get into New Zealand, we didn’t want to get caught in that trap again, so we booked our outgoing flight from Indonesia! We also looked up some things we wanted to do, but figured we would arrive in Bali and look for a hotel on our own instead of pre-booking one online – wish us luck! Once our computer battery gave up, we grabbed some dinner and then went back to our room and prepared for the next half of our trip. Nothing much to report today!

Art collection!

Day 43: Leaving PNG

This morning, we got up and sadly shuttled off to the airport to leave PNG. We had such a beautiful time here, but it was so very short. There’s a sort of melancholy leaving a place you love. There’s always that hope that you will come back, but there’s also that tiny little voice that says “what if we don’t?”, and you wonder if you will ever have the chance again. But on the other side, it’s so wonderful leaving a place with sadness because it means you really had a great experience there.

Thankfully, when we arrived at the airport, our tickets were still unsuspended (phew!), so we got onto our flight, and bid farewell to Kokopo, Mount Tavurvur, and all the beautiful people we had befriended in the last few days. We will truly miss them.

We arrived in Port Moresby with 8 hours to pass, but having heard about the high crime rate in the city, were unsure whether we should venture out of the airport at all. We finally decided to grab a hotel shuttle and spend a few hours at the Holiday Inn to grab a bite to eat. At the hotel, we called up a family friend who lives in Port Moresby and luckily, aunty was at home and free to come meet us, so she came and picked us up with her driver and second security vehicle!

She took us around Port Moresby to various art centres, where we had a look at the beautiful tribal and traditional works. Then she took us to their home and we spent a wonderful few hours getting to know aunty, as she told us all about her life, her family, and her two sons in Toronto. Around lunchtime, uncle came home and we all ate together and had great conversation! It was so natural and we felt as if this wasn’t just the first time we were meeting, but that we had known each other forever. They were so warm, helpful, and accommodating, and it was great to spend some time at “home”!

After lunch, aunty’s driver took us to an art store where we made our first major art purchase for our collection! We won’t tell you what it is but it is awe-inspiring! You’ll have to come visit us at home to see it in person! With very little time to spare until our flight, we rushed to ship the item back to the US (a cost that was more than the purchase itself!) and crossed our fingers that it would arrive in one piece!

Then we hurried over to the airport to check in and, seeing we had a couple of extra minutes to spare, asked the driver to take us to one more area where we bought another piece of art to bring home with us! In a matter of about one hour, we made two major art purchases, and were very excited to be starting our art collection in this way! 

We made it back to the airport in time for our flight, and headed back to Cairns, still wishing we could stay back in PNG for longer. We arrived in Cairns and grabbed a cab to where we had left our luggage, hoping they would have a room available, since we didn’t book anything for our next two nights here! Unfortunately, they were fully booked, but they sent us over to another hotel that had two rooms left! The first room went to a guy who arrived with us, and we bargained with the guy to give us the room at a better rate (which he did, phew!), so we checked in, dropped our stuff off, and went out to grab a bite to eat. We went out to a local lounge, listened to some live musicians, had a few drinks, and made our way back to the hotel to sleep. 

What is our first piece of art?!

Snorkeling!

Day 38: The Great Barrier Reef

After the 10-hour overnight bus ride, we arrived in Cairns at around 6am, walked to our hotel, dropped off our luggage, and headed over to the marina to catch our cruise to the Great Barrier Reef.

The cruise took us out into the open ocean, where we suited up in our snorkeling gear and jumped into the water to snorkel the Great Barrier Reef. The waves were quite strong, making the water fairly cloudy and also making it difficult for us to see much, but we did see some of the coral and some cool fish, and Gaurav saw a turtle! Rachna had a bit of a hard time with the strong waves, but we did manage to snorkel for some time. We swam back to the boat, and Rachna felt a little nauseous because of the rough waves, but we had some lunch and she felt better after some time.

The cruise operators told us that when the tides begin to subside, sand islands called cays begin to appear throughout the ocean! So basically there are these sand “dunes” that breach the water when it gets low enough. The cruise then took us out to another area on the reef, where we were taken to two cays and we basically “walked on the ocean”! It was so cool to walk from sand dune to sand dune in the middle of the ocean and to be surrounded by water everywhere with no land in sight! It was like we had discovered an island and were the first to set foot on it! Then we snorkeled some more, and saw some interesting creatures and huge corals.

The ride back to the mainland was quite rough and wet, but we made it! We didn’t see as much as we had hoped to see on the reef, but it was still a cool experience!

We walked around town a bit in the evening, had a bite to eat, prepared for our early flight tomorrow morning, and passed out!

Fish on the coral reef

Cays in the middle of the ocean (can you spot the two of them?)

 Gaurav carrying Rachna over the threshold (on the cay)