My Date With Tigers

This week I went to a place called Tiger Kingdom. It’s about a 30 minute drive out of Chiang Mai, and when you get there you buy a ticket based on what kind of tiger you want to see; babies, medium sized, or the big ones.  I picked a package that included the babies and the biggest tigers.  For an extra fee, you can also hire a photographer to go in with you and take pictures.  That’s the main attraction, it’s basically a photo shoot with tigers.  I love photo shoots and I love tigers, so this had my name written all over it!  

There was a long line for the biggest tigers, but no wait for the medium sized ones (of course, who wants to see medium sized tigers when there are big ones?) So I decided to switch so I could go immediately.  The so-called medium sized tigers were still very impressive.  Tigers are awe inspiring animals.  I have watched more than my share of National Geographic (I’m kind of an addict) but nothing prepares you for being right next to one.  For safety, we were not allowed to get anywhere near the front half of the cat, we were only to approach from the back and we could pet the back end and give it a tummy rub it if rolled over.  They are beautiful animals.  Their front paws are massive, hard to describe.  Easily bigger than my hands, and so powerful.  You can see the muscles rippling through their shoulders and ribcage.  I was so happy just sitting there with the tiger.  I am different when I am with animals, it’s like I can feel their energy and it makes me forget myself, makes me change.  Someday I want to do real work with these animals but for now, I'll settle for a photo shoot.

After that, I went to see the baby tigers.  We had to take off our shoes and put on special slippers and wash our hands before we could go in the enclosure.  They were so cute and they acted just like kittens only they were bigger and distinctly tiger-ish.  They were more active than the adults (aren’t kids always?) and were busy exploring their surroundings, tripping over their paws, and climbing over their trainer (which was adorable).  Again, it was so invigorating just to be in their space and just watch their little antics.  

I had so much fun that day I decided to go back the next day right when they opened and see the biggest tigers.  I’m glad I did.  Once again, I was awestruck by their size and strength.  And yet they were very patient with us walking around, petting them and taking pictures.  The trainers offered them treats for posing for the camera and played games with them. There is no question in my mind that if they didn’t want to cooperate, they wouldn’t. 

On the way back, we stopped at the PooPoo Paper gift shop, where they sell paper products made out of elephant and water buffalo dung.  The science behind it is that elephants and water buffalo eat tons of grass but they don’t break down the fiber all the way so their poo has a high fiber content.  So they remove the fiber and clean it (of course) and use it to make paper.  Genius!  I love any kind of creative recycling products.  

Life in Chiang Mai

Hi from my cute little apartment in Chiang Mai! Here's a video if you'd like a tour. It’s only been a week but it feels like it’s been a month!  I’m not going to lie, the first night I was lonely and a little freaked out.  I’ve been on my own for years, and I always travel solo, so the only thing I can think of to explain it is that in my mind, I thought this is it.  This is the beginning of My New Life in an apartment, not a resort.  Here I am, all alone in the city.  I lay in bed, listening to the city sounds, people talking, dogs barking, cars, airplanes passing overhead.  Will I be able to fit in with these people?  Will these sounds become normal to my ears? View from my window I made it through my first night and wondered what I was going to do for breakfast.  They offer a “breakfast” here at the apartment, but it leaves much to be desired.  By Thai standards it is expensive and all they had was some tired, grey looking chicken soup, orange “juice” (not from real oranges I think) and white bread next to a toaster.  I ate that and went back to my room.  A few hours later I was still hungry so I set out to see what I could find on the street.  There is very little English on the signs here; this is not a big tourist area.  I walked down the street to my left and looked for signs of food.  At first I didn’t see much, and what I saw I didn’t know how to eat, so I kept walking.  Finally I saw something that looked like an eating place, it was a shack with tables and there were people eating, so I walked up and said “restaurant?”  They smiled and handed me a menu all in Thai.  I looked at them with a confused look on my face and fortunately one of the guys walked to me and said “Rice? Chicken?” I nodded and they motioned me to sit down inside.  He went over to the front, pulled some chicken out of a cooler and threw it into a huge wok.  I thought to myself, at least it will be freshly cooked.  A woman put some rice on a plate from a big rice cooker, he put the chicken on the plate, and she brought it over to me.  About that time another "foreign" lady walked up to them and said “Rice?”  She was alone so I stood up and waved to her and asked her if she would like to join me.  She said yes and sat down.  She received the same food that I did and we both ate and chatted and found out we were staying at the same place!  So we walked back together and became fast friends.  Her name is Vicki. This is how they package food, some call it Thai tupperware.  You'll see hundreds of these in food stalls on the street.  It's pretty ingenious, actually. For the next couple of days, I did almost everything with Vicki.  She showed me what she knew of the city, having been here a month already.  She suggested we go to a local organic farm that offers cooking classes.  It turned out to be a fabulous idea!  The cooking school picked us up in a van with all the other students (maybe ten) and took us to a market to show us where to buy the ingredients.  Then they took us to the farm where we made curry paste from scratch with a mortar and pestle, coconut soup (my favorite), chicken stir fry, spring rolls, and a dessert called banana in coconut milk.  I have never cooked like that in my life with all fresh ingredients and it tasted amazing!  It makes me feel like maybe I can learn this cooking stuff after all.    Wrapping spring rolls at the Thai Farm Cooking School Pounding curry! I have been slowly branching out, looking at maps to figure out where the heck I am and taking longer and longer trips away from my apartment, being very careful that I can find my way back.  The people here are very polite, everyone greets you and if you smile, they smile back. If you bow, they return the gesture with a smile.  I am slowly picking up phrases, mostly hello (sa-wat-dee) and thank you (kob-khun).  I say those two phrases many times a day.  Yesterday I started working on my numbers, thinking that it would come in handy for shopping.  I have roughly memorized the first ten, but this is a tonal language so I won’t really get the nuances until later.  But it is a start.

Fish on the grill.  You buy it just like that, they stick it in a plastic bag, and you eat it.  I actually did eat one of these,  It was delicious! This was also for sale at a street vendor.  I did not buy this, just took the picture. I am optimistic about Chiang Mai.  I like the people and I am learning my way around.  Slowly, one by one, things become less mysterious.  I didn’t know it when I booked this apartment, but it is in a fairly remote location away from a lot of the things I would like access to and transportation is tricky.  So I am going to start looking into places closer to where I want to be.  But in the meantime, it is a darling apartment and I love it so I am enjoying my time here.

Dhara Devi

My stay at the Dhara Devi resort has been like a dream.  After my grand entrance (see previous blog), I stayed in my villa for at least a full day just taking it all in.  Just my villa alone was breathtaking!  Here is the view out my back door:

The property is huge, and you could spend weeks just wandering around and looking at everything.  The architecture here is so detailed and beautiful.

There are fascinating statues everywhere

One of the highlights of my stay was a ride on a water buffalo and the opportunity to plant rice like the Thai do.  That is backbreaking work, I only did about five minutes and I was over it.  The mud is at least two feet deep and you get sucked down in it every time you step.  So imagine spending your whole day having to lift your feet out of mud every time you step and bending over and planting individual rice plants by hand, one at a time.  Wow!  

Riding the water buffalo was so much fun!  He was so sweet and just interested in eating his lunch, he hardly noticed us.  

The last night I was there I got to see a traditional Thai dancing show.  That was very nice!

I thought there was something different about their fingers and I probably would have just put it out of my mind if one of the girls' fingers were not bent so drastically I couldn't ignore it.  When I got back to my room I looked it up and sure enough, from a young age, dancers bend their fingers back because it is considered beautiful.  Fascinating.  

I am so thankful I got to stay in this beautiful place.  It was too expensive to stay there long term but definitely an experience I will remember forever!

Journey to Chiang Mai

Wow, it’s been a roller coaster week, 3 countries in 5 days!  I said goodbye to my sweet elephant friends in Taro and headed to the airport for Singapore.  I had booked a room at Hotel Clover the Arts because it looked clean and artsy.  It did not disappoint.  I went to my room and opened the door to find I had gotten the elephant room!  I had not requested that, in fact I didn’t even know there was an elephant room.  Out of all the rooms in the hotel, what are the odds I would get the elephant room right after leaving the elephant park?  Here is my video of that room.  I love Singapore!  After three weeks of third world conditions, it was such a nice break to be in a clean, modern city!  I went to the Chinatown market that night and ordered a deep friend sea bass for dinner.  It was really good!  The waitress admonished me for not eating it correctly and said “next time, you order steamed fish, you eat the whole thing!”  I wasn’t trying to waste food, there’s a technique to eating fish like that and I haven’t had much practice.  Luckily, the table next to me ordered a steamed fish and I got to see how the pros did it.  They ate every part of the fish, skin and all except for the tail fin and backbone.  I watched in fascination as the guy put the entire fish head in his mouth and spit out the bones!  I resolved to do better next time.  Chinatown night market, Singapore. The next day I was on a mission: I had some supplies I really needed to restock, mostly personal and first aid items.  I went back to Chinatown and started perusing the shops.  I was thrilled that I was able to find everything I needed by lunchtime!  I dumped my finds in my hotel room and set off for the Gardens by the Bay.  If you look at any tourist information on Singapore, you will see these iconic towers. In addition to the towers there are two domes, the flower dome and the cloud dome.  I was already tired and hot so I opted to explore only one dome.  I chose the cloud dome because it sounded mysterious. I bought my ticket and got inside the front door and immediately ran into a crowd of tourists that had stopped just inside the front door, causing a traffic jam.  Once I got around them, I saw why.  Right in the middle of the dome was a huge waterfall, going all the way up to the top which was five or six stories!  I took a lift up to the top and then walked the circular walkway down.  It was breathtaking!  It is brilliantly designed with plants, waterways, and sculptures all harmoniously placed together.  The walkway took me around to the back of the waterfall, then around to the front, and so on.  After that, I was officially tired and verging on heat exhaustion so I went back to my room.  I packed up all my new supplies and the next day it was back on a plane for Bangkok!  The hotel I booked in Bangkok, the Shanghai Mansion, was by far the coolest room I’ve stayed in yet.  Video here.  It is set right in Chinatown so that night I had the opportunity to visit the night market and sample some street food.  My favorite was a duck and noodle dish.  It was so good, about 20 minutes I went back for some more and they were sold out!  Darn. I was still overtired from Singapore so the next day I just laid low in my hotel room, easy to do since it was so amazingly beautiful, and only went out to eat and come back in.  It was exactly what I needed.  I learned after Bali to take heat exhaustion and dehydration very seriously.  And I am learning to listen to my body and be patient if it needs more time to heal.  View from inside the waterfall in the cloud dome. Gardens by the Bay, Singapore. After a nice relaxing day in Bangkok, it was time for my final plane trip for awhile (I hope) to Chiang Mai!  It was an easy flight, business class was only about 30% full so we all had plenty of room to stretch out.  In Thailand I have read that scammer taxi drivers will take you somewhere other than where you want to go in order to get more money out of you so I had booked a car from the resort.  It was about 1/2 hour drive and then I felt like I was in “The King and I!”  They drove me into the resort and up this grand ramp in front of what I swear looked like a palace!  I was ushered out of the car, my bags taken, sat down in the lobby, given a flower necklace, cold cloth and tea.  I filled out the paperwork and my butler, a very sweet young Thai lady, asked me to follow her to a golf cart.  She said “I hope you don’t mind we upgraded you to a villa.”  I was completely overwhelmed by this point at the size and beauty of the resort I just kept nodding and bowing and smiling.  The drive to my villa took a good ten minutes.  She opened the door and gave me a full tour, bathroom, kitchen, sitting area with tv, balcony with private pool.  I was just starting to wonder where the bedroom was when she said "follow me please" and we went outside, up a flight of stairs and into another building!  This was the master suite with a queen size bed with mosquito netting (Thank God) and a whole bathroom suite with walk in closet.  She sat down with me and went over every single aspect of my options, tours, food, shopping, and asked me if there was anything she could do for me.  I said no thank you and after more bowing and smiling she left me to my new abode.  I spent the first hour wandering around in a daze.  I had booked the smallest, cheapest room in the resort so I was awestruck at the beauty and deeply grateful to be given this incredible gift.

I am going to stay here and relax for a few more days and start looking for my next place. Until next time, have a great week!

Adventures In Mailing

I went to a shack labeled Post Office earlier today to mail a package.  I have a few things I want to send home but I decided to just send one and see how it went.  There didn’t appear to be anyone in the shack at first but I figured they were somewhere.  I walked up to have a look around and there was a lady laying on a blanket on the floor behind the desk.  She jumped up and said hello.  I said I would like to mail a package and I took a wrapped gift that I had bought for my sister’s family and another piece that I wanted to send with it (I don’t want to spoil the surprise for her) and laid it on the desk.  The lady dug around in a pile of plastic bags and came up with a very well used gift box or maybe food container.  Hard to tell.  She placed the gift in the box and it took up less than half the space.  She started to put the lid on, she was going to send it just like that.  I noticed a smaller box underneath the desk and asked her if we could use that.  She said yes so I took the box this time, placed the gift inside and asked her for some newspaper.  She took a piece and began to fold it.  I took it out of her hand and crumpled it and packed the gifts in the box and put the lid on.  She then took a roll of shipping tape and tried to find the end but couldn’t so she gave it to me!  I found the end and handed it back to her and she wrapped the entire box in shipping tape!  Good luck opening that, Liz! Then she took the package and weighed it on a bathroom scale.  It was a very light package so of course it didn’t even register.  She asked me to tell her how much it weighed.  I said it looks like one kilogram.  She asked, “how many grams is that?”  I told her 1000.  She called someone on the phone and spent quite a while asking them what the prices were and finally got off the phone and handed me a shipping label book.  She said to fill out the top portion with my information and the bottom with the recipient’s.  I filled it out and then she examined it.  She pointed to the box with the return address and pointed to the box and said “for?”  I pointed to the return address and pointed to me.  This is kind of hard to describe in writing but it was hilarious.  We had a conversation that went something like this: (point to return address) “FOR”, (point to mailing address) FROM.  Me: “no (point to return address, point to self) ME, (point to mailing address, point to box) SEND.”  She pointed to the boxes on the page and said “FOR, FROM,” which was the opposite of what she told me to do.  So I said “I’ll rewrite it.” She said “no, it’s okay!” I took the book from her, drew a big X through the box I had just filled out and re-wrote it the opposite way.  We went through it again (point) “FOR,” (point) “FROM.”  At this point I started giggling and she did too. “Sorry, sorry, so confused!” she said.  I said “it’s ok” because really, what else could I say?  Then she gave me a sharpie and pointed to the box.  I wrote the address on the box, grateful that at least I had a better chance of it getting sent to the correct address.  I paid her and we smiled and said “thank you” and I went on my way.   So Liz, I hope you get your package.  She said it would take about three weeks.  I saw a different “post office” on the way back to my lodge.  I think I will try them next time. 

Eeeek! A Spider!

True confessions: After my run in with the spider, I went walking down the street and saw that every other building is an accommodation of some sort.  So I started inquiring.  I found a place called TunJung Mas Bungalows that is the same price and the rooms are clean and the doors close properly, no huge gaps.  So I packed up my stuff and moved.  

Quick recap for those of you that weren't there for the epic Facebook conversation.  I checked into my beautiful but tiny little room in Ubud, Bali.  I was a little surprised because I had this picture in my head of what Bali would be like and I thought I was going to be in a quieter part of town but it turns out the place I booked is right on the main street and the town is super busy!  So I was a little thrown off by that.  But such is the life of a wanderer so I was determined to keep an open mind and explore where I landed.  Even though I felt very exposed, the grounds were absolutely gorgeous!  So after doing some walking around, I settled in for the night.  I woke up at 3:30am (as I often do - touch of insomnia) to find a huge spider on my door!  Not tarantula size, but about the size of my palm, quite big enough to scare the bejeezus out of me!  I grabbed my laptop and started writing status updates about it.  The nice thing about the time difference is that when it’s 4am here, it’s the middle of the day for Sacramento where I come from so all my friends were up and commenting.  (Status updates in red)

“OMG you guys it is 4am and I just found a giant spider in my room! Eeeeeekkkkk!!!!!”

After I wrote my first status update, I looked at the door and it was gone!

“Ok, so I looked up from my computer and he's not on the door any more. What's worse, seeing a spider or not seeing a spider? Oh Sh*t, he's on my desk now!”

“I called the reception guy and he came in but now we can't find it. All I can think of is it's behind the bed. Aack!”

The reception guy tried his best to find it but in the end he failed.  

“So I've got at least two hours to hang out with my arachnid friend until sunrise... There's no way I'm going back to sleep. I'm sure I'll get used to it but it's only my first day so I'm freaked out!”

I sat in the center of my bed in the middle of the room until sunrise.  Finally a bird started singing and I felt better, knowing the worst was over.  I still shuddered to think that spider could be anywhere!  So after breakfast I wandered down the street and decided to find another place to stay.  

It wasn’t just the spider that made me decide to move.  It was a number of things that all added up.  First, the location,  imagine buying a cheap storage shed at Home Depot that hasn’t been put together properly and so has big spaces in between the doors.  Now put it on Howe Avenue (for non-Sacramentans, a very busy street) and try to live there.  That’s what this place felt like.  Even though they have done their best to create a beautiful oasis, the fact remains that you are sitting right on the street.  I read the reviews and I think I just lucked into getting the worst room.  There are other rooms further back with better features.  But when I asked to change rooms they said there was no availability.  The spider was just the cherry on top and with the way that room was constructed I knew there was no stopping a hundred other critters from coming right in.  The staff was really nice about trying to help me out but in the end they could not solve my problem, so I tried to be as gracious as possible when canceling my reservation.  I paid a small cancellation fee - uderstandable - and packed up my things and moved to my new place.  I felt better in this place knowing the door was pretty airtight.  It had this fantastic shower which was on rocks, kind of like an outdoor shower but totally screened in so I was confident no spiders could get in.  I unpacked and went out to explore the city.  I came back later that afternoon and took a shower, which was an interesting and fun experience!  I went out again to find some dinner and when I came back, to my horror, there were giant ants making their way en masse from the shower into the bathroom!  Seriously, they were easily 2mm long and fat!  We used to have red ants like that in Carmichael so I knew those suckers wouldn’t die easily.  I killed all the ones in the bathroom but five minutes later there were just as many!  I looked online for natural remedies and made an ant-killing concoction of water, tea tree oil, peppermint oil, and clove oil and sprayed the heck out of everything!  My room smelled amazing but it didn’t seem to deter the ants.  I dumped a bunch more clove oil in but it destroyed my spray bottle.  So I finally went down to reception and told them the situation and said I’d like to change rooms to one with an inside shower.  They asked me if I would let them clean it first and see if that solved the problem.  I said ok and minutes later had three staff guys in there looking for ants. They said “there aren’t that many” and I said “that’s because I already killed them all!”  They came in with some kind of pesticide and sprayed all over the shower which killed most of the ants but made the whole bathroom smell like pesticide which couldn’t have been healthy for me to breathe!  I told them I would stick it out for the night but would probably still want to change rooms in the morning.  I spent a very nervous night not knowing what I would find every time I opened that bathroom door!  I did make it through the night and woke up with a fresh bite mark on my foot.  At 8am I went down and requested a room change.  This time I have a room with an inside shower and a good fitting door.  I dumped the rest of my concoction on a towel and pushed it up against the gap at the bottom of the door and saturated cotton balls with tea tree oil and clove oil and placed them by the door and in the bathroom.  I was a nervous wreck as night fell, hoping I wouldn’t have another freaky bug battle!  I didn’t get much sleep but by about 2am I hadn’t seen any more bugs I finally started to relax.  I do have the cutest baby gecko which makes me feel more comfortable.  Why do I love lizards and hate spiders and ants?  I don’t know, but it’s how I am.  As of this writing it is 6:30am the next morning and as far as I can tell, I am still bug free.  It’s not that I expect to be completely bug free all the time; there were plenty of bugs at the first place I stayed (the Elephant Safari lodge) but they made sense.  A couple of ants which came out of the fruit tray they brought in, the occasional spider.  This was not a man-eating spider chasing me around a tiny room or an army of determined ants forging their way toward me.  I have learned a few valuable lessons from this experience.  I definitely look for clean rooms with tight fitting doors when I book lodgings.  I am much more interested in learning about essential oils now and plan on expanding my collection.  At 2am all alone in a room in a foreign country it helps to have some essentials oils to concoct remedies for problems.  I am optimistic about this new room; third time’s a charm I guess, and I am looking into my next move to hopefully something less bustling and more like the Bali I was hoping to find.  

Adventures in Ubud

**Disclaimer** There is a bit of overlap between this post and the "Eek! A Spider" post, but there is enough detail in each that is different, I decided to include them both. Hi all!  Last time I left you, I was thoroughly enjoying my stay at the Elephant Lodge.  After my blissful three days there, it was time to go to Ubud and see about whether it was a candidate for a longer term stay.  It didn’t start well.  I packed everything up and went down to reception to check out and confirm where I was going.  They all nodded and said they knew exactly where that was, no problem.  So I got in the car and the driver asked me “where we going?”  Not a good sign.  I told him the name of the hotel and he said “you know how to get there?”  Uh, no I didn’t!  Then he just started driving.  I said, “we’d better go back and find out where we’re going!” I don’t know what he was planning on doing.  We went back to the lodge and I went to reception to clear the matter up but the driver said he talked to the other drivers and he knew where to go.  I said “are you sure?” and he nodded.  So off we went.

Not my driver from the hotel, but a good picture of my first ride on a motor scooter later that week! After about an hour of driving, he dropped me off in the street in front of a sign that said “Yoga Barn” and another that said “Ubud Aura,” which is what I had booked.  I was a little shocked to be right smack dab on the busy street in the middle of the city!  That was not what the pictures showed.  I shouldered my backpack and rolled my suitcase down an alley, having no idea where I was going, and the driver took off.  About a block down the alley I found it, a tiny little enclave in the middle of a very busy area.  I have to say the landscaping was beautiful.  Their photographer had caught every possible angle, making it look like an all inclusive retreat when it was just a few tiny buildings and a pool.  I checked into my room, which was right in the front.  Nevertheless, it was a darling, tiny room with beautiful woodcarved doors.  Wanting to keep an open mind, I settled in.  Pretty soon, I began to eye those doors.  The beautiful woodcarving also meant a hundred holes which creatures could fly or crawl through easily.  I wasn’t sure what to do, so I settled in for the night. All the sidewalks have gaping holes in them, not all this big, but you really have to watch your step or you could fall pretty far and seriously injure yourself! I woke up at 3:30am (as I often do - touch of insomnia) to find a huge spider on my door!  Not tarantula size, but about the size of my palm, quite big enough to scare the bejeezus out of me!  I grabbed my laptop and started writing status updates about it.  The nice thing about the time difference is that when it’s 4am here, it’s the middle of the day for Sacramento where I come from so all my friends were up and commenting.  (Status updates in red) “OMG you guys it is 4am and I just found a giant spider in my room! Eeeeeekkkkk!!!!!” After I wrote my first status update, I looked at the door and it was gone! “Ok, so I looked up from my computer and he's not on the door any more. What's worse, seeing a spider or not seeing a spider? Oh Sh*t, he's on my desk now!” “I called the reception guy and he came in but now we can't find it. All I can think of is it's behind the bed. Aack!” The reception guy tried his best to find it but in the end he failed.   “So I've got at least two hours to hang out with my arachnid friend until sunrise... There's no way I'm going back to sleep. I'm sure I'll get used to it but it's only my first day so I'm freaked out!” I sat in the center of my bed in the middle of the room until sunrise.  Finally a bird started singing and I felt better, knowing the worst was over.  I still shuddered to think that spider could be anywhere!  So after breakfast I wandered down the street and decided to find another place to stay.

Sweet gecko that decided to hang out on my bathroom mirror.  I love lizards and hate insects and spiders.  I know that doesn't make any sense, I don't understand why either! At the risk of this newsletter becoming VERY long, you can read the rest about the ant invasion here if you haven't already.  After two consecutive nights of bug drama, I finally got a good room with a minimal amount of bugs.  Then, to give you a brief overview of my time in Ubud, I got heat exhaustion followed by Bali Belly, so I was basically sick the whole time.  Even if I weren't sick, Bali just wasn't what I was hoping for.  There are places outside the city that are more peaceful, but another problem I had is it is way too hot!!  When I said I wanted to move someplace warm, I didn't mean hades-hot!  So all that taken into consideration, I decided to spend my last five days in Bali back at the Elephant Lodge.  After that, I am going north to Chiang Mai to seek slightly cooler climes.  I have learned a lot from this adventure; I look for very different things when I book a lodging, for example I am less concerned with decor and more interested in clean rooms with tight fitting doors. I am also learning to read between the lines of hotel adverts.  "Situated in the heart of the city" is now a key phrase for me to avoid.  So I book something really nice for a few days and then get my feet on the ground to inspect longer term potential lodgings in person. I am still learning to be patient with myself and remember I am not going to get all the answers in one day. This is a journey, and I am enjoying the ride. My first taste of rambutan, a local fruit.  It was delicious! For more up to date information, videos and pictures, follow me on Facebook or on Instagram @suzernathy.  Have a great week!