From this Side of the Pacific

It was a beautiful Saturday. Yet, it wasn't a normal one for us as this is the last weekend before our departure.



Jay and I finally put stuff in our suitcases. They're not yet shut but that's not due to them being too full. We will put in last-minute items tomorrow. My poor big, old bag must be more than a dozen years old. The two original wheels roll along well; however, I have noticed all new bags seem to have four. Perhaps, I can return with something different.

We went uptown although we came back with just a Toblerone chocolate bar as well as some rolls so Jay can make chicken-salad sandwiches. We probably won't need food for the airport as we plan on being in the Vancouver airport between 11 o'clock tomorrow night until the wee hours of Monday morning. Jay does make sure we travel well-prepared, even though he was never a scout.

Just yesterday, the idea of leaving for five months made me feel a little nervous. The emotion has already morphed into excitement. We're soon to journey and explore chunks of the world that most acquaintances will never see. Hell, many wouldn't be able to find these places on a globe! I cannot believe we know so many people who have so little wanderlust.

Warm Blooded

I'm coping with the cold weather. We all have mechanisms; mine is my strata's hot tub. Imagine, the outside temperature is warmer in this area than any other part of province tonight! Some forecasts put tonight's temperature as dropping to 2°C in New Westminster. It's freezing elsewhere.

What about tomorrow? Hey Google. Let's take a look at the weather in on the island of Bali too.




It looks as though both locations will have some rain. Yeah okay, I'll take the latter. Warm rain is a great deal better. That's not a hard decision for me. After three nights in Taipei, we arrive in Bali next Friday for the start of our winter.

Priorities

We got the suitcases out of the closet. When initially choosing clothing for them, we found several bags worth of clothes to donate to the thrift store. That was the first errand this morning. We also went uptown to pick up several token gifts for a few people as we won't be here during Christmas gift-giving season. As we were driving down the hill in New Westminster, I additionally considered there was no beer in the apartment.

The thought of returning to a place without a single bottle of BC beer suddenly sounded horrifying. Having some stored for next spring should provide a welcome-home beverage next April. We don't head to YVR until Sunday night; I hope a few of these 12 bottles remain!

Have the Sandals, Need the Shirts.

November is here and that's exciting because that's become our going-away month in recent years. We travel because we always have and find the experience fulfilling. One major reason we leave at this time of year can be represented by the picture I took from the balcony a little while ago. Believe it or not, this was snapped during the best weather period of the day.



It turned out to be a complete day with no visible sun, again! This means the week has sort of been like the winter from which we're running away. So, between heavy showers, I walked to the thrift shop at the other end of Columbia Street. I visit every so often when I think I might be able to find a Hawaiian shirt. Today seemed as good as any and better than most because of the weather.



I found two, neither of which were real Hawaiian prints. However, both will be good to take along for our winter in Indonesia and Malaysia. I need new shirts for photographs. I'd hate to look exactly the same as last year!

It's Expensive to Stay Home

Lots of people erroneously assume it takes a whole lot of money to travel. I have an impossibly hard time trying to convince others that Jay and I leave Vancouver during winters to save some. (Okay, getting to places with non-stop sunshine and temperatures around 30°C is important to us too.)

First off, think how much is saved when turning off the following for five months a year: automobile insurance and maintenance costs, electricity and water bills, as well as Internet and TV subscriptions! These add up to more than the upfront costs of airfare and visas. Moreover, it's almost always more economical to live in the countries to which we travel. We, of course, eat much more healthily in the tropics for much less.



For example, in several weeks we'll be leaving for Bali, Indonesia. Spending our initial couple of months in such a lauded location sounds as though it might be very expensive. However, take a look at the information provided by numeo.com. The chart above compares the cost of living in Vancouver, Canada and Bali, Indonesia collected today. Click the graphic for more details on the website itself.

Winter is Coming!

When we see the calendar approaching November, it means we have to ensure preparations for winter. For some folks that might mean putting on snow tires, but for us, it means making sure our travel plans are in place.

We will start this winter in Bali. For months we've known where we're staying and for how long. Indonesia requires a special visa in order to stay over 30 days. As we will be there for two months, we decided to apply from here for visas for our entire visit. The Indonesian Consulate is on Alberni Street in Vancouver. We knew dropping off our applications today would ensure we'd be all set to leave British Columbia on November 11th.



This morning, we brought our paperwork, photos, and bank drafts to the consulate. An official checked over the details and gave us a slip of paper indicating that our passports will be ready to pick up in less than a week.



For the remaining three months of our winter away, we have booked a place in downtown Kuala Lumpur. Entering Malaysia is easier as free, three-month visas are issued upon arrival at the airport. That should take us right up to our return to Vancouver in mid-April of 2019.

30°C is Perfect!

The weather in this part of British Columbia is glorious. It's been a long, hot summer. The temperature was comfortably over 30°C in New Westminster today. In fact, now, even after seven o'clock, it's still over that magic number!

We've been doing pretty well in our plan to stay much of the year in this range of daily temperatures. We do not leave for winter until mid-November and it'll no longer be so warm in these parts at that time.

However, I expect we'll be in the magic numbers as soon as we start off our winter. We'll go to Bali first. The seismic activity should have settled down by then. At least, I hope so.


We haven't spent time in Bali since visiting in 1992.

Six Minutes

There are a few things which I could write about today. For example, this was the first smokey day in the Lower Mainland due to wildfires. I hope this situation is shortlived. Also, Translink stated playing 'public service' announcements featuring Seth Rogan. He's a local boy and I love his humourous transit messages. However, rather than just playing in the buses and SkyTrain cars, these are broadcast over the PA system in SkyTrain Stations too. Columbia Station, and therefore Translink, has constantly proven to be a horrible neighbhour because of the high noise level of non-emergency announcements. We have now seen complete decades with no improvement!

Rather than a daily, local issue though, I will post two, short YouTube tourist videos. They were produced for two very famous travel websites. I want to try to get friends interested in visiting us this winter while we're based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Which of these might be more persuasive?

Thaipusam 2019 at Batu Caves

I have got an extensive collection of personal photos on Flickr. In fact, I can do a search there to locate just about anything from my life for which there is photographic evidence. Of course, the pickings are a little slim, for the majority of my days, before the advent of digital photography.

I was wondering how long it's been since Jay and I first visited Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia. After my little search, it seems we travelled there after seeing some cities in mainland China. We were in KL during the fall of 2011. That was the first and only time we visited the nearby Batu Caves.


The Batu Caves are one of the most popular Hindu shrines outside India and the site is dedicated to Lord Murugan. Luckily, we should arrive in Kuala Lumpur just about a week before the Thaipusam festival. (We will be coming after spending a couple of months in Bali.) More than a million Hindu devotees should begin celebrating at this spot around January 21st next year. It will be something we'll surely not miss.

This year, we were witness to these festivities in Penang.

Mid-November 2018 to Mid-April 2019

Of course, I went out for some exercise today. I found the morning was cool. In fact, June has been much colder than when we arrived in BC seven or eight weeks ago! I also drove over the Pattullo to fill up several growlers at Central City Brewing.

I thought the weather would make a good segue for the following two pictures. They are supposed to represent our upcoming winter. We have arranged accommodation for two months in the first location and for three in the other.


I would like to thank the Flickr users for allowing me to use these. Click on each photo to visit the photographer's page on Flickr.

We Ain't Seen Nothing Yet!

Jay and I have been exploring places ever since we first met, and even before that time. I think of us as world travellers. Thus far in 2018, we've only added one country though: Brunei. It's not a contest, but I truly want to experience more than the 68 countries or territories I've visited. That number may sound like a lot.

Bah! We've barely scratched the surface, so to speak. Entire continents have been mostly or completely left untouched. We'll never have a chance to see every place we'd like. There simply isn't enough time left.

It's scarier to consider that we now sometimes choose to return to places we've already been. Both major destinations for next winter end up being repeat performances. We have locked in our five-month stay which starts in mid-November in parts of SE Asia we've already seen. I guess there's a big difference between just experiencing a short vacation from work and going somewhere to stay for two and three months. More exposure equals a better understanding of the location and people.

Still, I hope we eventually get back into a routine of brand-new exploration. A place one has never visited could be a future favourite, couldn't it?


I loaded an Android app called Countries Been. It provided a travel map that's fun to create. I didn't bother to enter cities yet. A whole lot of Asia might appear more complete if I had let two days in Saint Petersburg stand in for all of Russia. The areas which are coloured are where I've visited or lived.

Heat Seekers

Our morning stayed cloudy and rather cool. It wasn't until after 5:00 PM that things cleared up. I do feel sorry for those Canadians outside trying to enjoy the Victoria-Day long weekend while camping and such. At least we didn't see rain locally.


Better weather is coming later in the week. We are thinking about getting away for an overnight in Kamloops on Tuesday and Wednesday. We haven't been to British Columbia's dry terrain for a while. Presently, the weather forecast for the BC interior looks great and a bit hot. Well, let me be more accurate: some people might consider 30°C as hot. We, however, regularly seek out places with temperatures above that.

In fact, today we picked up early tickets for next winter! Today was the very first day it was possible to buy tickets for a return on our favoured date next spring. As a rule, it is not possible to purchase air tickets more than eleven 11 months ahead. The price was as low as we've seen it. Yay. We're staying a few days in Taiwan on our way to SE Asia. It will be our first visit to Taipei.

Let Me Choose What I Share

As I am typing this, I'm uploading a 17GB video to YouTube. It contains one hour and forty-five minutes of HD camcorder footage of last fall's Holland America cruise from here to Auckland, New Zealand. I wanted to get the raw video online as it was just sitting on the laptop. I got worried that I'd accidentally do something stupid. That is a pretty rare type of event, I admit.

Uploading from home will take a while. I didn't want to wait another few hours before adding today's posting. So, I will give a teaser about our plans for NEXT winter. We've only been back 12 days, but it's time to start making plans for 2018/19. The hint is the contents of the screenshot.



It also shows another privacy choice I'm making for my computer time. For years, I've been religiously removing my search history from Google's servers. However, I've been making vast changes to avoid 'corporate surveillance' in my social media participation, encrypted email services, and browser choice. So giving DuckDuckGo 'a go' for searches seems like a no-brainer.

Looking Ahead on a Lazy Friday

We take a shortcut through this temple complex to our guesthouse accommodations.
Day 108 - Jay is not feeling well today. Moreover, I also feel like staying in the room with the A/C on. Consequently, things are pretty quiet at this moment.

We did spend a bit of time trying to decide what we will do next winter. We have found it necessary to plan pretty early as the places we stay tend to have a big tourist draw over the Christmas holidays. If we want to find a place to book from mid-November, then we have to make sure to beat the folks just booking for two weeks around the end of the year and beginning of 2019.

Our 'Ten-Year Plan' developed when we chose early retirement. How neat to consider I've now been officially retired for 40 months! In brief, it means we will spend 5 months of the rainy Vancouver winter overseas. First, for convenience, we rented a place in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. The following winter we spent beside the Nile in Luxor, Egypt. Last winter was put on hold because of Jay's bypass surgery. So, we are still living out the 'raincheck' winter in Malaysia, and now Cambodia.

It looks as though we have already accomplished the three destinations outlined in this post published near the end of January 2015.



So next? New places in SE Asia? Where in the world would you go if given our situation?