Entries about wellness

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.

I guess people think I am crazy when I tell them I spend the night with 32 other people, but that is exactly what happened! Although I must admit that I didn’t slept all that well. I woke up a couple of times during the night because at times it was just so hot inside my sleeping bag, but the minute I opened it, it was freezing cold, so what to do, that is one major question a person thinks about in the middle of the night!

On the other hand, when I asked a bit around, I wasn't the only one with sleeping troubles coz a few people didn't sleep at all because someone was snoring and since I didn't hear that, it must have been somewhere in the front of the building, since I slept all the way in the back. It seemed I was blessed that at least I slept a little.

Breakfast was being served in the main hall and this time there was some french toast and fruit as well as cereals. I went for the french toast with bananas coz it was a nice reminder of our start of the trip and secondly of all, I just love it, can you blame me???

As soon as all the bags were in the bus and everyone was finished eating, we could start on our way towards our activities we chose yesterday. Lots of people went for the rafting activity, or even zip lining between the trees, but me and Tania together with 3 others chose for Hell’s Gate. It is all in the name isn’t it!

Hell’s Gate is simply put some kind of spa. We are in Rotorua and this place is not only well known for lots of health spas, but for the nicest smell in the whole wide world as well and I am not talking about the lovely scent of flowers, but sadly enough the smell of rotten eggs and I guess I think you know what that means … sulphur, right!!!

This spa we were going to visit has it all, me and Tania together with Kate went first on a short walk where you could see different geothermal activity.

Isn’t that nicely put?? Afterwards we could spend some time in the mud pool and after 20 to 30 minutes playing with mud, it was time for the second pool which was a sulphur one. I loved this so much, the temperatures were heavenly but somehow I got trouble with my eyes in the second one and I had to get out at one given moment.

Maybe I'd better had worn sunglasses like all the rest coz the sun probably reflected in the water and hit my eyes so to speak and at one given time I couldn’t even open them. It was really weird. I got a tingling sensation and I couldn’t even see, I only hoped that this sudden blindness wouldn't last and luckily it didn't!

After our rejuvenating „swim", we were picked up by a shuttle bus, which dropped us of at our hotel and after we've got settled in our hotel, we went back to the centre of town to grab something to eat and also to do some souvenir shopping. Tania really wanted a cycling shirt but after searching for it for quite a while, we still hadn’t found one. Bummer, but maybe we can do some more shopping when we are in the capital, we will see.

Since there wasn't so much to see in the centre, the both of us walked all the way back towards our hotel alongside the waterfront and this was just so beautiful at times. The nice sceneries kept on coming and coming and luckily from time to time we even got some sunshine. All in all a perfect day for a nice walk along the lake, sadly enough we had the rotten egg smell following is, but hey, with such a view, who cares! 

Once back at the hotel, we changed into our running gear and while I went for lesson nr. 4, Tania was up to something like number 14 I guess, so I have a lot of catching up to do, but I don’t think that this is going to happen while I am in NZ. Anyways, the „run” was lots of fun and although you could do it on your own pace, the most incredible thing were the sceneries, the smell of course was something completely different, but like I mentioned before, after a while you forget about it and just enjoy what is in front of you.

It was already late when we came back from our run and after having a well deserved shower, we went back in town for some dinner. Strangely enough it wasn’t all that busy once it gets dark and also colder. We tried to find something to eat, but most of the joints were closed. Strange indeed coz it is a friday night. Everything should be bustling with party people but not in Rotorua. To me it looked more like a ghost town and after walking about half on hour in mostly empty streets, we found a little pizza place and went for it. It seems we were right by choosing it, coz not only was it value for money, it was yummie as well.

The strangest thing however is that we closed the joint. As soon as we were finished with our dinner and walked out of the door, they closed it. Really how can you close a restaurant at 9 PM in the evening when all your tables our „reserved”. It just became stranger and stranger.

Since it wasn’t all that much fun walking in an almost ghost town, we decided to go back to the hotel but getting there seemed somewhat of a problem. Normally we don't have a problem with finding our way, but here in Rotorua we kept on turning into the wrong streets and instead of walking back to the hotel in mere minutes, we arrived there more than half an hour later, I don't know what they put into that pizza, but it couldn't be something good!?

Once we organized all of our stuff and updated our blog a little, it was already pretty late, but the thing that puts a smile on my face, was the fact that tomorrow we could sleep in coz we weren’t going to leave until 9.45 AM. Sounds like heaven in my ears!