Postcard from Bangkok

(Oct 25th)

We've been relaxing in Bangkok.  We're for three days, and we're treating it like a "weekend."  All this vacationing has been hard work, and we need a break.  Yesterday we basically hung out in the hotel room all day, and it was great.  Of course it helps that we have a river view executive suite at the the Sheraton.  Just watching all the boat activity in the Chao Phraya river outside is fascinating. A read (and finished) her book, we both caught up on news and blogs (iPad Mini, do you think C's dad bought one yet?), and C spent time researching and planning for the next three weeks in Cambodia and Vietnam.  We did step out of the hotel for breakfast at a french bakery around the corner and lunch at a street stall two blocks away.  Perhaps tomorrow we'll get our act in gear and do something touristy.

-C & A

A enjoying her beef noodle soup for lunch.  45 baht = US$1.50

Postcard from Sanur (Bali)

(Oct 20th)

We're now back in the Bali we're accustomed to.  We're staying in the laid-back beach town of Sanur on Bali's east coast.  Our room (at the Bali Hyatt) has an enormous rooftop terrace surrounded by lush vegetation with views of the sea.  The amazingly friendly attitude of the Balinese combined with Hyatt service works really well.  Every hotel staff member within eyeshot of us has wished us good morning/afternoon/evening, everyone at the Regency Club remembers our name, and they even brought us a Happy Honeymoon cake!  Strolling the beach boardwalk today we decided we like Bali so much we extended our stay as much as we could (only one day was possible it turned out.)  Yesterday we hired a car (and driver) to tour some sites on the island including the seaside temple Tanah Lot on the west side and some black sand beaches on the east side.  Really smooth black sand -- just like pristine white sand, except jet black.  It's safe to say we'll be sad to leave Bali in a few days, and we can say for sure that we'll be back.

-C & A

View from our room 3325 at the Bali Hyatt

Large terrace at the Bali Hyatt.  

The room also had two smaller "normal" balconies.

A in front of Puta Tanah Lot

Happy Honeymoon!

Postcard from Ubud

(Oct 18th)

Now we are in Ubud, inland in Bali.  The interior of Bali is all about rice, and we've been immersed in it.  We are staying in a standalone little building set back in the rice fields called the Lumbung House ("Rice barn house").  Rice may not be the most interesting food to eat, but it sure does look pretty when it grows.  Yesterday we took a bike tour through rice fields and small villages.  Totally beautiful and totally hot and sticky with the tropical weather and 90 degree noontime sun angle.  Ubud is such a relaxing place we feel like we could spend weeks here, but later today we'll head down to the beach in the town of Sanur.

-C & A

Here's the view while working on the blog.

Balinese school children (3rd grade) enthusiastically saying 

"Good Morning" and waving. 

Postcard from Sydney

(Oct 14th)

This post is part of a series of short "postcard" posts that we will endeavor to post in real-time as we're at each destination. Bear with us as we attempt to catch up with our posts. Detailed posts will follow about each destination.

We've been loving every minute of our stay in Sydney so far.  Arriving at the Park Hyatt at 10:15 AM to find our room ready with a view of both the Sydney Opera House and Harbor Bridge really started things off on the right foot. Tonight we plan to go to dinner at the Lord Nelson Brewery Hotel (pub) where we enjoyed eating back in 2007 on our first trip to Sydney.  For now we're just enjoying the view and the sunny weather.

-C & A

P.S. Here's the view from our hotel room at sunrise -- the sun is actually passing through the glass of the Opera House!

View from our hotel room at the Park Hyatt Sydney

Bus over the Andes to Mendoza

(Oct 1)

The bus route from Santiago to Mendoza.  The crow would definitely fly a straighter route.

There would be several switchbacks as the road climbs the Andes mountains..

Our trip to the bus station began with our 1.2 mile walk to the subway station and then carrying our bags down several flights of stairs, some of which A tripped and fell down but luckily did not get hurt. We had planned to get more Chilean money from a nearby ATM since we knew it was one that didn't charge us, but for some reason A's card didn't work even though we had used the same card to successfully get money out two days before.

A returns from the failed ATM mission.

Our backpacks wait.

At the bus station it was quite easy to find the Andesmar booth and the correct bus stall and we boarded our bus after purchasing some lunch for the 7 hour ride. The bus we were on was a double-decker bus with big recliner sears in the cave-like lower level and "semi-cama" seats on the upper deck which were basically like comfortable bus seats but with more pitch, more recline, and squishy, soft seats. Definitely an improvement from BoltBus. We had chosen row 2 on the upper deck when we bought the tickets so we had a pretty good view out both the front and the sides.

C in his Semi-Cama bus seat.

Our route would take us over those mountains.

View out the front of the bus.

We headed out of Santiago and quickly began to climb into the mountains. Before too long we got off the highway to head toward the Libertadores Pass on a one lane each way road. Around 11am they passed out ham and cheese sandwiches, which were a surprise to us since at booking it said no food. So,we had 4 sandwiches now to tide us over. The views were quite good along the way and we began to see snow on the peaks. Just before the Chilean border there was a series of switchbacks and then the Portillo ski resort. The skiing had just closed for the season a couple weeks earlier so there was still a lot of snow though also lots of bare rocks on the trails.

Road towards the mountains.

Watch out for falling rock.

Road in the mountains.

Lots of switchbacks on the Chilean side of the pass

The road crossed under a ski lift a few times.  There was no snow on the ground -- only rocks.  We had been told that it was not a good snow year.

Each hairpin switchback in the road was numbered.

The mountains at the top of the pass were covered with snow.

We reached the combined border facility and had to get off the bus inside a sort of large shed with no insulation. At over 11,000 feet it was quite chilly while we waited in line to have our passports examined first by Chile and then by Argentina, whose officials sat side by side in a booth (a surprising level of government efficiency in Latin America). We then all boarded the bus again before having to pile out with our bags for the luggage inspection. The inspectors seemed to be mainly concerned with Argentinians who had bought goods in Chile and the inspection process was fairly quick. we were careful to throw out the rest of our sandwiches that we hadn't eaten since meat and cheese were forbidden but no one really seemed to care and there were lots of sandwich leftovers still on the bus.

Exiting Chile

Combined Chile-Argentina border facility.  Man it was cold inside.

Immigration facility from the outside.  Really just a big drive-through shed.

The whole border crossing took an hour and a half and then we we were on our way again. The Argentinian side avoids the switchbacks by having a few tunnels through the mountains. We passed the turnoff to Aconcagua but could not see even a glimpse of the peak since it looked to be snowing at higher altitude.

We both slept for most of the rest of the bus ride and woke up just as we were entering Mendoza. I was surprised how big a city Mendoza was.

Also snow on the Argentina side of the pass.

Descending the Argentina side.

The descent was much more gradual than the ascent.

We collected our luggage from under the bus and tipped the baggage handler a 500 Chilean peso coin. He did not like that C took a photo, we're not sure if you weren't supposed to take pictures of the bus station operations or if he just didn't want a picture taken of him, but we put the camera away and set out on the 1 mile walk to the Park Hyatt Mendoza.

Unloading the bus.

Santiago

(Sept 28-Oct 1)

Upon arrival in Santiago, we took a taxi from the airport to the hotel.  Our hotel, The Grand Hyatt, is in the upscale Las Condes district of Santiago which is on the other side of downtown from the airport.  Although a taxi would be expensive (USD40), taking public transit would require us to take a coach bus ($2, 20 minutes) to the subway ($1.20, 36 minutes) to a walk ($0, 20 minutes).  Taking a taxi also enabled us to catch the tail end of happy hour in the club lounge.

Taxi from the airport – look at the highway in front of us!

Leaving the airport in the taxi, we were immediately struck by how modern and functional both the tai and the roads were in Chile.  We’re not in Kansas (Peru) anymore!  Our 29km taxi ride took under 20 minutes – a limited-access highway (dual carriageway) the whole way, with an extensive tunnel beneath downtown.  Compare that with our 45-minute taxi ride to the airport in Lima covering only half the distance.

Grand Hyatt Santiago exterior

Arriving at the Grand Hyatt, as usual we fought off declined assistance with our luggage from the bellmen.  We were assigned room 1918, an Executive Suite.  We had confirmed a suite in advance using a suite upgrade given to Hyatt Diamond members.  Our research had told us that the suites at this hotel were on the 2^nd, 3^rd, and 19^th floors, so we were hopeful that our 19^th floor room would offer nice views.

The atrium at the Grand Hyatt Santiago reminded us of the atrium at the Grand Hyatt Shanghai

The hotel had a dramatic 19-story atrium, reminiscent of the Grand Hyatt Shanghai.  Our room was fantastic. Two sets of floor-to-ceiling windows looking out at the Andes mountains (damn the smog!), a desk and sitting area in the living room, and separate bedroom with a king bed looking out at the mountains, a large bathroom, and one of the biggest whirlpool bathtubs I’ve ever seen.

Hotel Room entrance – we’re in the Strauss suite.  It’s a good sign when your suite has a name.

Suite living room

Suite living room

View from the Strauss suite at the Grand Hyatt Santiago.  The Andes mountains are behind those clouds.

Bedroom with open floorplan

View from the bedroom

Extra large whirlpool tub directly behind the bed.

Bathroom with everything you could as for but only a single sink

We dropped off our stuff and headed down to the Grand Club on the 16^th floor for drinks and appetizers.   Sparkling wine was on offer which was our first choice, followed by red wine with our selection of hot and cold munchies.  This would suffice for dinner after our late lunch on the flight from Lima to Santiago.

Our goals for our first day in Santiago were the following: (1) Take the free walking tour around downtown. (2) Buy tickets for our bus trip to Mendoza. (3) Get cash (Chilean Pesos) from an ATM and (4) decide of we want to take a side-trip to the town of Valpariso on Chile’s west coast.  Being frugal as we are on our extended trip, we embarked on the 20-minute walk to the Metro to take public transit downtown. Conveniently there was a BancoEstado (“State Bank”) right at our Metro stop (Manquehue), and BancoEstado is one of the two Chilean banks that doesn’t charge foreigh ATM holders for withdrawals. Unfortunately the ATM was only in Spanish.  Fortunately we were able to use our iPhones (and our international data roaming package) to translate some key words like “checking account” (which looked more like “current account” in Spanish).  Down in the Metro station, we again needed to resort to the iPhone (this time the Lonely Planet Offline Spanish Translator app) to ask to purchase Bip Cards (pronounced “beep cards”, stored value transit cards) to take the Metro.

Once downtown we attempted to find the starting location for the 10:00 am free walking tour organized by the group Spicy Chile.  In the vicinity of the starting point we stumbled across a changing of the guard ceremony near the Moneda Palace (literally money palace, formerly the mint).  The ceremony was fascinating, with a full brass marching band playing a medley of international and American favorites.   Needless to say we never found the walking tour.
 

Changing of the guard ceremony in Santiago

Changing of the guard ceremony 

Band playing at the changing of the guard ceremony

The next walking tour was not until 2:00 PM, so we decided to walk around ourselves to the Plaza De Armas (the central square, named so in all Spanish-settled cities it seems).  We attempted to find the tourist office to inquire about bus tickets (Lonely Planet, you definitely labeled it in the wrong place…).  We did find a glasses store to pick up a replacement glasses case for C (he left his on the Plane from JFK-LIM, fortunately without the prescription glasses inside).  Approximately 10% of the stores in downtown Santiago are shoe stores.  There were dozens. 

Shoe stores were everywhere in Santiago

and a shoe store

and a shoe  store

Along the Plaza de Armas itself we found the tourist office.  The staffer inside, who did speak English (although limited) was surprisingly not helpful to book bus tickets.  The office did, however, have Intenet access and we were able to book our ticket ourselves online with the bus company Andesmar.

Stray dogs in Santiago are plentiful, and they seem to enjoy sleeping in the middle of activity in public.

Around the Plaza de Armas was a lot of activity, both tourist and locals, and also a lot of sleeping dogs.   We had lunch at a traditional Chilean restaurant Bar Nacional. We each had a sandwich, one a steak sandwich with no toppings (yummy), and one a chicken sandwich “complete” – with goopy avocado, lots of mayo, lettuce and tomato.  Needless to say a complete mess.  But very tasty. 

Lunch at Bar Nacional

Steak sandwich solo

Chicken sandwich complete.

Finally 2:00 rolled around and we found the starting point for the walking tour.  Our guide was Antonio, and 20-something Santiago resident who spoke good English and had good knowledge of the city. The walking tour was to be 4 hours(!), far more comprehensive than we expected.  The tour offered us a crash course on the downtown are of Santiago, as well as several interesting glimpses into Chilean culture from the 25-year-old local.  Santiago, as it turned out, had much more to offer than we originally expected and we would happily return for another visit.  Below are several pictures from the walking tour.

We finally found the statue at the meeting point of the walking tour.

Antonio was our guide for the Spicy Chile walking tour.

On the walking tour, at a contemporary art and dance center.

C in Chile

Along the tour Antonio pointed out one of his favorites restaurants.  He recommended a typical Chilean dish called corn pie – pureed corn on top of a mix of beef, vegetables and black olives. After the tour we returned to this restaurant, and, at Antonio’s recommendation ordered the corn pie accompanied by Chilean wine. And Chilean beer.   The stop was intended as simply a holdover snack until dinner, but the corn pie was positively enormous (and yummy, with minimal olives thankfully) and the wine and beer economical and good.  Near the end of our meal one of the other guests on the walking tour arrived (Timothy from northern Montana), and we had a fun discussion with him seated at the table next to us.

Finally we took the subway back to the hotel and crashed.

On our second day in Santiago we had originally planned to take a 90 minute bus trip to the cute coastal town of Valparaiso.  Waking up on the second day, however, we decided that we would rather just relax in our spectacular suite at the Grand Hyatt Santiago, explore the Las Condes area around our hotel, and possibly try out the gigantic whirlpool tub in our room.

Breakfast in the Grand Club consisted of a cold buffet with plenty of yummy options.  The cappuccino was delightful, and the smoked salmon was plentiful.  Next up on the agenda was work on the blog.   If any of you readers ever write a travel blog like this, you’ll realize what a surprisingly large amount of work it is.  Really—it’s just like having homework, except, with the potential benefit of providing a fantastic look back in time later in life.

Once we were blogged-out, we walked over to the nearby shopping mall to find lunch.  At the mall there was a multi-level, outdoor restaurant area the reminded us a lot of southern California, complete with such favorites as Tony Roma’s Steakhouse, TGI Fridays, and PF Chang’s .  There was also Tanta, a Peruvian restaurant (that we’ve eaten at in Lima), and the place we selected, an Asian-Chilean fusion restaurant called Madam Tusan.  

Outdoor restaurant area.  Doesn’t it feel American here?

The weather was nice so we chose to eat outside.  Immediately after sitting down the sky clouded up, the wind freshened, and the true impact of the 60-degree temperature was felt.  It was cold, and we hadn't brought jackets.   We ordered a crispy Asian noodle dish and Lomo Saltado fajitas (an upsell by the waiter – a traditional Peruvian dish served in Mexican style in a Chilean restaurant – we said fusion, right?).  After we ordered it was 1h15 minutes before our food came.  Hardly any attention and definitely no apology from the wait staff.  And don’t forget we were freezing.  And nursing our cans of soda hoping not to have to order a second one.  A Chilean family at the table next to us was similarly incensed by the cold and slow.  They appeared to be able to voice their concerns to a manager in Spanish.  We were not so able, although C did painstakingly type paragraph into Google Translate on the iPhone attempting to plead for mercy.  Near the end of time the food came, and it was delicious.  It may have been a $50 lunch, but at least it was tasty.  At the end of the meal, after some gruff non-verbal communication with the waiter (including pointing at our watches, and moving our index finger 1 ¼ times around indicating 1h15m, the waiter returned to offer free desserts.  Which were also excellent.  Still he seemed disappointed that we weren't eager to offer a tip at the conclusion of the meal.  

The saving grace of the lunch-from-hell (as we called it) is that it took so long and we ate so late that we were able to again make dinner out of the hour d’oeuvres at the Grand Club at the Hyatt.  We have mixed feelings about spending so many meals in the hotel lounge.  On one hand it’s fantastic on such a long trip to be able to find 1.75 free meals each day (breakfast and maybe dinner).  On the other hand, eating dinner in local restaurants is a fantastic way to immerse oneself in the local culture.  Fortunately we’re still young enough that we can count on returning to each of our destinations later in life, so we’ll have another shot at Chilean culture. 

Back at the hotel we took a spin through the pool area.  The Grand Hyatt Santiago has a resort-like pool area; unfortunately it was too cold during our visit to use the pool.

Pool at the Grand Hyatt Santiago

It was a shame it was too cold to use the resort-like pool

Next was the whirlpool tub experience (requiring a bit of ingenuity to open the air vents to enable to bubbles). After a delightful evening in the lounge, we retired to our suite to enjoy the bottle of wine provided to us as a welcome gift by the hotel.  Finally we packed up our stuff for our departure to Mendoza the following day.