Entries about art

I don’t know what happened overnight, but unlike the previous night where I had the best sleep ever, tonight, I probably had the worst night of my entire trip. I couldn’t sleep at all, my nose kept running, my troat was constantly hurting and I got the shivers. I am no doctor, but even I know that I probably had the flu. How things could progress so very fast, I don’t know, but I felt utterly miserable. 

One good thing though, I still managed to eat something, but I kept on sweating and sweating, even when I was inside an air-conditioned place, that’s not normal. Just to be on the save side, I took some painkillers and something for a running nose, which I bought yesterday evening, but still, I felt like a zombie.

Tania opted to stay in the hotel and do nothing and relax, but that is not how I wanted to spend my last days, so instead I just tried my best and wanted to make the most of it, after all, today we planned on visiting the Batu Caves and I really don’t wanted to miss out on that one.

Before we left for the caves, we had one quick look at the towers for some more pictures, but with dark clouds hovering above them, we hurried back inside the towers and just took the metro all the way to Central. From Central we had to take another train towards the caves, where we arrived about half an hour later and by the look of all the tourist busses, we were definitely not alone. I guess when in the neighborhood, these caves are a must to visit!

While we walked towards the entrance of the caves, we came across some cute monkeys who were eating some mango and small bananas but with such a huge crowd of Asian tourists, who were bugging the little monkeys with there selfie sticks, I suddenly felt the urge of taking the stick from them and poke them as well. The nerve some people have!!!

A little bit further down the road, we finally found the stairs towards the cave and I must say that I knew that there were going to be around 272 steps, but still, it is quite impressive if you look at it.

On our way up we were constantly reminded of the monkeys running around and although they still look very cute to me, some of them became very angry and attacked a few people. I haven’t seen it with my own eyes, but heard it on my way up and the only thing I could think of was … good monkey! I can understand that you loose your temper around so many tourists!

It didn’t took long to get up to the cave and when we finally arrived at the top, I was surprised that there was actually so little to see, I expected more temples inside, but I guess that the locals build them and breake them back down again coz it was literally almost empty, but still, one heck of an impressive cave that’s for sure!

Just on our way down again, we saw a sign as well at the entrance to the "Dark Cave", which of course caught our attention.

It turned out that you could do a guided walk inside the cave for about 45 minutes and see an unique spider. Not that that was on my wishing list for the moment since spiders are the one thing I am more than afraid of, but hey, I was keen on seeing another cave, so we went for it.

Since the other group had just left, we had to wait for a while, but that wasn’t too bad coz I was a bit tired and this meant I could rest for a while, after all, I still wasn’t feeling well, but I guess this was going to last for the next couple of days, I just had to make the best of it.

After waiting for almost half an hour, a young girl by the name of Juliana came to the both of us and told us that she was going to be our guide and together with a young man from Germany and one from Japan, we formed a group for the next upcoming hour.

Once inside the cave, Juliana gave us some detailed information about the caves in general, the forming of the rocks, the insects and other creepy crawlers that live inside the caves and lots and lots more. I think she got all of our attention and from time to time, we even had a stop and a moment to take a few pictures. All in all it was a fun time inside and in some ways even better than outside coz at times we could hear the rain falling down on the rocks so, we had a natural umbrella, what is not to like!

When our tour was over, we tried to find something to eat and found something at a local Indian thingy. We ordered some vegetarian noodles and although we specifically asked not to make it spicy, by the time it arrived, it looked yummy but flames came out of my ears as well, this was just not normal.

I still suspect the cook of doing some extra hot spices into our dish coz the young men eating next to us were laughing at us when we made all those funny faces. Oh well, it is like live entertainment I guess and in the end there is no harm done, but still, damn, that was spicy!!!

Back outside the restaurant again, we went on the lookout for something to get rid of the spicy taste and the supermarket next door had just the right thing, a lemon / vanilla ice cream on a stick. Yummie in the first place, nice and cold and the most important thing, the spicy feeling was gone. The best dessert of the day!

Since there was nothing else to do, we just went back to the centre of the city and more specifically towards Petalin Street. Yesterday we promised our massage girls from the Philippines that we were going to come back for a real massage and once promised, we have to keep it up, so, I guess about an hour later, we walked through the door awaiting a moment of bliss and even an hour later I was sure of it.

It really felt good and while having my massage, Brenda noticed that I had a fever and told me that she was going to give me the right medication for my cold.

While Tania was having a pedicure, me and Brenda went off to the pharmacist, which was basically just a small store in a Philippines mall and with a bit of explanation, I got my medication called Bioflu. She said it helped on Beth as well and since I saw some improvement in her cold, I knew it had to work for me as well. it better, coz I felt so miserable and that was not how I wanted to spend my last day here in KL.

As soon as Tania’s pedicure was done, we went outside again, had a bite to eat and afterwards while it slowly began to get darker and darker, we just walked back to our hotel, only to arrive back in our room after 10 PM.

Time is constantly flying and by the time we said goodnight, it was already pretty late, but I wasn’t really aware of that coz I fell asleep in an instant.

One day you get a bit depressed when you see rain, the next morning you wake up with a smile on your face when you see the sun shining. New Zealand is such a strange country and although I am here almost 3 weeks, I still can’t figure it out. Do I hate it or do I love it???

Like usual we had an early morning coz we needed to go on the road again and today we once again had a few hours of driving ahead of us, but luckily we were going to do something a bit more active as well and today we were going for a bike ride.

The trip from the small town of Te Anau to Arrowtown wasn’t that far, just about an hour and a half and as soon as we got there, we had some time to explore this old gold rush town a little bit more. Instead of trying to look for some lost gold flakes, me and Tania just relaxed on a terrace and enjoyed the sun on our face while having a marvelous cup of chai latte together with a yummy scone. I can’t describe how delicious the selfmade jam was without drooling, it was just that good!

Now that we had a bit of real food in our system (because how long can a person survive on cereals and a piece of toast), we were ready for our 13 km long bike ride from Arrowtown to the Kawarau bridge where me and Tania jumped off just a few days ago. Thinking about that day made me wanna relive it and I guess Tania was thinking the same thing coz as soon as we all got our bikes, she went off like a rabbit on cocaine. I tried to follow but my scone drug of this morning wasn’t helping, so instead I just made it a relaxing one and together with a few members of our group we made sure this trip was going to be unforgettable. During our ride we made a lot of jokes, had some speeding contests, made a few picture stops, but most of all we just laughed and enjoyed the scenery.

Upon our arrival at the bridge, we saw people jumping off it and although I knew that there wasn’t any time left for me to do this as well, I secretly hoped that Tania got her chance and could jump for a second time. When I met up with her, I was a bit sad to hear that she didn’t and as I wanted to ask Craig if it was possible to do the zip lining, he also declined. Apparently there wasn't enough time. On the other hand, maybe it wasn’t that bad after all coz there was so much wind, but still, instead I just resorted to looking at the jumpers but unlike a few days ago, the people were just hooked with a harness around their waist. The weather wasn’t really permitting a bungee jump, but a normal jump was allowed. We were so lucky that we could do the real one. It doesn’t happen that often, but sometimes luck is a bit on our side. A bit that is!

On the other hand, maybe I wrote this down too soon coz while almost our entire group waited for the last people to arrive at the bridge, we suddenly realized that we missed 3 persons. In the beginning we thought they were still coming because they were just slow riders, but when our driver Craig went on the track and tried to find time for about half an hour, they were no where to be found. What the heck???

During our bike ride, we always had to follow the stream, but it looked like those 3 had taking the wrong track which went all the way to Queenstown.

Not something we wanted of course, so we left Helen behind and the search went on for a tall German guy and 2 petit Australian girls. In the beginning it was kinda funny, but after driving more than half an hour it wasn’t. I even started to think we were never going to find them because once lost, there are more than one side tracks you can take. Where the heck are they??? 

Thankfully Helen called that they were finally at the bridge and as soon as we were back on the road again, we drove all the way back to Kawarau bridge where our 3 missing „sheep" were waiting for us. All in all I am just happy to see that nothing went wrong, but on the other hand I am a bit selfish as well as I was thinking that while all this drama was going on, I’d better had stayed at the bridge so that I had time for a zip line adventure. Am I bad or am I bad!?

With everyone back on the bus, we continued further along the road towards Lake Ohau, the place where we were going to spend the night. It was still quite a drive and while we passed once again some amazing sceneries, thanks to my great selection of music I fell asleep once more, only to wake up again when we stopped at a small shop alongside the road. This place was called Jones’s fruit stall where you could buy some delicious fruit as well as dried fruit, nougat and all kinds of nuts. If you are a fruit lover, you really would go „nuts" about it.

The two of us bought a nice selection of everything, some freshly cut pineapple, a box of cherries and of course, how can we resist it, nougat with honey and kiwi. What is not to like about that. If the weather isn’t good, the food has to be!

Back on the road again, we had one more stop in a small town called Cromwell. It is not like there is much to see in this little town except for a giant display of fruit while entering the town, but I have to admit, the Pad Thai they served in the local Thai restaurant was more than fine to me. For dessert we still had some pineapple and as soon as we all had the lunch we wanted, we could jump back on the bus for another 2 hours of driving towards the lake.

During our ride, we saw the blue sky turn into some kind of thick pea soup of clouds and soon after even dark clouds where hovering around the Lake Ohau area. By the time we reached it, rain was pooring again. It seemed it was going to haunt us wherever we went. Instead of going for a run around the lake, I chose to relax in a hot bath and by the time I was totally zen again, it was time to have dinner as well. This was going to be our last meal together with the group and afterwards, a few of us met up at the bar. Not that we were such a big party group, but with a few drinks, some nice conversations and from time to time even funny dance moves, the evening wasn’t all that bad.

At 11 PM we all called it a night, after all, we all had to get out of bed early and in the end I think we made a wise decision coz as soon as I crawled into my bed, my Vodka Raspberry did his work and brought me straight to dreamland.