New Caledonia - Iles des Pins or Isle of Pines in English

So after our week in all the main island of New Caledonia, it was time to see another great place: Isle of Pines. It's a a small island in the south of New Caledonia, and even if it's small, there is plenty to see and do there: Amazing sand beaches, reefs to dive in, cycling, a sizable part of French history, caves to explore and fish at hand's reach.

So let's start from the beginning. We had just gotten back from our 4-day camping trip in the north of New Caledonia, exhausted and full of adventures. But we couldn't lay down. The next day we had to wake up at 5:00 to catch the ferry to this small island. Our friends in Noumea lent us theiy tent and diving goggles so we could enjoy the most of our weekend there. We also brought some food for most of the time there so we had a lot of luggage to take with us. We had to walk 30 minutes to the pier where a lot of people were already waiting.

The journey with the ferry was not all pleasant for us: They were showing a kids movie (The Golden Compass) with the sound as loud as in a cinema, and the end of the trip was very bumpy and some of the people there couldn't keep their breakfast in...

But once we arrived, it was all forgotten: The sea is beautiful, so clear, so blue.

After picking up our rental car at the pier, we headed to our camping site, called Nataiwatch, and after a quick lunch, we started our excursion of the island.

End of school year parade in Vao

We went to see the ruins of the old prison there, where political prisoners from France were held, and the cemetery of those same prisoners. Those prisoners were Communards (like Jimmy Summerville's band from the 80's) and were kept with their families on the island for life. The Communards' story is one of the most interesting parts of Parisian history, and for those who are interested, go read about it in Wikipedia :)

After seeing some history, which is usually Rony's passion, we went to see one of Talia's passions: Caves. We went to the Queen Hortense Caves in the center of the island that, according to legend, was the place the queen went to think and find peace while visiting all of the tribes.

One of the funny things is that there is an entrance fee of 250 francs, but there was no one to collect it.
Instead, a note was left saying that in case nobody was in the booth, we should leave the money in a plastic box that was left there. So we emptied the box and took all the money with us. Psych! We did what the note said, and paid every penny so they can keep this place nice and clean.

Sign at the caves asking people to pay up :-)

The cave is very peaceful indeed, especially since we were alone there. And the gardens at the entrance are very nice too.

The Queen's caves - some of it was pitch black!

We went all the way North to see Crabs Bay, but we saw no crabs. At this point we were quite tired after a week of travel, so we decided to call it a day and returned to the camp site, returned the car and we went to sleep at the incredible hour of 8:30PM. Well, Rony did. Amazingly, Talia was able to fall asleep around 9 as well and we actually woke up the following morning.

The next day we went to the main attraction on the island: A tour in pirogue (traditional fishing boat) in the Upi Bay, then a walk to the natural swimming pool. The day starts at 7:30 and ends at 15:00.

Rony and Talia on the pirogue in Upi Bay

The boat tour was very nice, with a lot of beautiful places where to take pictures. A bit long (2 hours) but very peaceful compared to what comes next: A 1-hour walk in the forest with a trail between rocks and tree roots. Now you may say "OK, what's the big deal?" Well, once you arrive with the pirogue at shore, you have to get in the water as deep as your knees and walk in a sinking sand for a few meters. So unless you have slippers you don't care about, you can only do that barefoot.

We didn't have slippers we don't care about, so we had to walk in the forest barefoot for about an hour. It was a bit hard and Talia had to put her shoes on at some point, with all the mud still on her feet.
But it was worth the trouble: The natural pool is beautiful, full of fish all around us, coming at us. We saw so much species and coral reef, literally at our feet. Not to mention quite a few crabes, but they were more afraid of us than we were of them.

That was the highlight of our weekend there.

Talia sunbathing in the natural pool

We spent one more night camping and decided to take the next day easy and just stay in Nataiwatch, which has a beautiful white sand beach and enjoy the view till our flight back to Noumea.

The airport is the smallest we've been in our whole lives, and so was the plane: It probably could contain 40 people in it but we were only 20 so everybody could see the view on the lagoons all the way back till Noumea.

lagoon view from the plane

lagoon view from the plane

We thought places like this did not exist in real life and were only a creation of Photoshop, but we saw it for real!

Now we were ready to celebrate Justine's birthday for our last day in New Caledonia.


Again, it was too short to enjoy everything and there are so much things to see there, we maybe saw half of it. But we keep great souvenirs from our hosts and people we met there, this beautiful island, and one day we'll come back to see everything else.

Isle of Pines pics:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=578294&id=906005363&l=9516f48761

North New Caledonia - La Foa, Bourail, Poindimie, Heinghene, and Kone - Part 2

So after visiting Teremba, the old prison, we went to Bourail, a small town a bit north from there. We decided to have lunch there on a parking lot, and Rony decided that it will be a good place to start to learn driving a stick shift. Talia was all "What!? Here?! Are you sure?!"

Rony: Yes! This is a great place, big parking lot!
Talia: Did I ever tell you how I fired my Mom when she taught me how to drive and swore I wouldn't drive until I was 56?

For someone who never drove a stick shift, it's a bit like learning to drive for the first time: You have to learn to use your left leg and your right hand, you feel all clumsy and it's very frustrating because you know you know how to drive, but you still feel like it's your first lesson...

Emotionally it was hard for Talia, especially that there were some kanaks (locals) watching us and some of them were laughing. The first step is always hard.

After a 30-minute lesson (no charge) Rony took back the wheel and we drove to the other side of the island, on the east coast. We passed beautiful scenery while we were driving up the hills and when we finally got to the coast it was wonderful.

We passed Houailou (pronounced Lulululu by Talia), a nice little town on the east coast, and went to our first night stop in Poindimie, a place called Chez Simone. We rented a bungalow there, in the back yard of the house. The place is in a tribe up the hills, in the tropical nature of that island. So we had a few "visitors" and "roommates" during the night: Spiders, bugs, mosquitoes, and some unknown animal that Rony thought was a squirrel, although apparently there are none in New Caledonia, and Talia thought was a rat. The mystery will remain forever...

After all the night adventures, we went on up north. We went to Hienghene (pronounced "hygiene" by Talia), where Nature offered us the beautiful view of "La poule de Hienghene" (the chicken of Hienghene) and the sphinx, 2 beautiful rocks on the coast.

La Poule de Hienghene

Then we went further north to see Tao waterfall. For that you have to pass with your car over a river on a ferry boat. It is called "bac" in French. The bac of Ouieme. It's quite fun and we had time to see the beautiful surroundings and take more pictures. :)

After that, it was a bit harder to find our goal, Tao waterfall. Apparently we passed it and arrived in another waterfall, Colnett (which we were going to see anyway). There we saw many local children jumping in the water from a big tree. It could be a commercial for New Caledonia, that wouldn't surprise us. Everything there seems like tit was taken from a travel agent commercial or Photoshop.

Tao waterfall

On our way to find Tao again, we took a local kanak that was hitchhiking to go home. He was a bit drunk, but he told us a few facts on the region: The small bridges on the road were built by the Americans during WWII, when New Caledonia was a base for American troops in the Pacific. And the river on which we took the ferry is "tabou", meaning that the place is sacred and no bridge should be built there. In New Caledonia, there are many sacred places ("tabou") that are important for the locals. So that was one of them.

Anyway, we drove him home but it was a bit late for Tao waterfall, so we took a couple of pictures from the road and when on to Kone. Rony decided that we should sleep in Kone because it's closer to the places we wanted to see at the end of our tour. And there was also a friend of Justine's who lives there, a french Canadian named Genevieve. We met her 2 days earlier at Justine's house and she was very nice and gave us her phone number in case we were around Kone.

The original plan was to pass through Kone and not stop there, but since she was there, we thought "why not have coffee or diner with Genevieve." Well, it went beyond our expectations: She invited us for dinner and champagne and beer, and to stay overnight and camp in her backyard. She lives with a roommate from work who is a great cook and she prepared us a fish tajine. It was the best meal we had in New Caledonia. It was delicious! So when we get back from our trip, we will ask her for the recipe and make it ourselves :) We had a lovely evening with them, and in the morning they left us their key so we could shower and they set the table for breakfast. Best B&B we were in :)

The next day we went all the way back to Bourail, where Talia could have her second driving lesson. In the same parking lot. But different people were watching. And they had nothing to laugh about. This time Talia nailed the stick shift driving. Level 1 passed.

We also saw the wonders around: Turtles Bay, La Roche Persee (Pierced Rock), and Le Bonhomme.

Bourail: La roche persee and Le Bonhomme

Now we could go on and see the wonders around La Foa, Sarramea and the surroundings. We camped one more time in a farm near La Foa and when to the Parc des Grandes Fougeres so see a bit of nature and hike. There we saw a cagou, the national symbol of New Caledonia. It's a bird that can not fly and exists only on this island.

Wild Cagou

After that we went back to Justine's, where we just crashed on the couch and got prepared for our next trip: Iles des Pins (Isle of Pines.

Pics (same album as the last post):

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=576716&id=906005363&l=70fc839448

Our Asian journey begins!

We're at the airport! You've gotta love free wi-fi at Israeli airport Ben Gurion. :-)

We wanted to let you know about our schedule for the trip. Tonight we are departing for Thailand. Here's our schedule:

Nov 2-21 - Thailand. We are spending the first week at a wildlife rescue place, volunteering. I (Talia) will be with the elephants (I'll finally be short and thin!) and Rony is hoping to be with the bears again like he was last time.

Nov 22-24 - Sydney, Australia

Nov 24-Dec 7 - New Caledonia, an incredible island close to Fiji, the one where Rony's friend lives

Dec 7-Jan 6 - Australia! And New Year's Eve in Sydney, of course :-)

Jan 6-10 - Hong Kong

Jan 10-15 - Beijing, China

Jan 15-18 - Shanghai, China

Jan 19-Feb 19 - Japan!!!

We need to go board the plane, so we can't write much. We aren't sure if we'll be updating this week since the Wildlife place doesn't have Internet. I shall let you know how I survived 1 week without Internet.

On my new blog HowISurvivedAWeekWithoutInternet.com.

Not really.

They're calling our names. We'll talk to y'all later :-)

Preparing for the big trip to Asia

So this is our first post. From this here blog, we will update you about what we're doing and where we are.

Side note to thieves: We have friends staying at our apartment and we've taken out all of our valuables anyway, so nothing to see here, moving right along.

Back to the trip.

Rony and I will be leaving on Monday, November 1, 2010 for an almost-4-month long trip. We start in Thailand for 3 weeks, then 2 weeks in New Caledonia (a magical island by Fiji), a month in Australia,  a few days in Hong Kong, then Beijing and Shanghai, and finally an entire month in Japan.

It all started out with a trip to New Caledonia that Rony had been tentatively planning, to see a friend of his who lives there. The following is an exact replica of the conversation we had back in March (more or less):

Rony: Would you like to take a long trip? Like 2 or 3 months long?
Me: Yes
Rony: Really?

So we started out looking for a flight to New Caledonia. Of course, nobody in Israel has ever heard of New Caledonia. So we figured we need to take a flight to Australia and then go to New Caledonia, since New Caledonia is near Australia. We found this awesome deal to Sydney with Royal Jordanian, with a stop by Bangkok on the way to Sydney and a stop in Hong Kong on the way back.

And come on, we're not going to stop there just to visit the airports. We want to see those places, too! So now it started becoming a long trip, and we knew we'd need to leave our jobs to be able to take it. Or at least ask for a leave without pay for 2.5 months. Thankfully, both of us had jobs that wanted us back after the trip.

So then we thought, Hong Kong is so close to mainland China, won't we see it? Plus we both have a friend there who we used to work with. And it's all so close to Rony's dream destination Japan, why not add it, too?

So now it's a 4-month trip to 5 countries (6 if we count Hong Kong as a separate country from China), tropical weather as well as freezing winter, and so many different cultures. A once in a lifetime journey. And so much to prepare!

Mainly, deciding what to bring is a big issue, especially since it will be lodged on our backs for most of the trip. Over the past 2 weeks, we have been furiously preparing everything we (think we) will need for the trip. Here is what we are taking: A week or so of summer clothes, 3 pairs of pants, a toothbrush, soap (just enough for the first few days), my hair cream, thermal shirt and pants for me, and one warm jacket or sweater for the snowy winter...until we buy a heavy coat in China or Hong Kong. We really don't want to schlep a winter coat through summery Thailand and Australia.

Oh! And our passports and tickets of course!

Today we packed our bags, just to test what can fit in and that we don't pack too much.

And then we unpacked them - we're only leaving in 2 days!

But we did need to make room in the closets for our friends' stuff, and make sure our bags didn't weigh too much. I was positive I would fall backwards once that bag was on my back! (I didn't, or we would have taken a picture).

We are the epitome of nerves and excitement with respect to our upcoming trip. We assume that once we land in Bangkok, we will lose the nerve part and just have the excitement left. I am personally hoping not to talk Rony's ear off the whole way there :-)

To be precise, he's probably the one hoping I don't talk his ear off...

Fortunately, he knew me for years before we started dating, it's not like he can get mad about something he knew about before. I mean, hey - you can't get angry that the sky is blue! It can't help it!

The day we fly, we will post our basic itinerary, in case any of you decide to join us during the trip (looks like we have company for 1 week in Japan already!) and let you know what kind of money-saving opportunities we've decided to take advantage of, which lead to our ability to extend our vacation by an entire month.

Talk to y'all soon!