I'd rather be playing with Elephants

Saturday, November 19, 2005

Home Sweet Pensacola

After two days of traveling (27 hours in the air on 7 flights), I made it home to LA (lower Alabama)late last night. Guess what I did on the way home. I started a new list of places I want to see...

Peru, Chile, Patagonia, Cuba, Ireland, Morocco, Mozambique, Kenya, Croatia, Bhutan, Malaysia, and diving in Belize and the Red Sea, just to name a few!

Thanks for following along online my journey of a lifetime!

XO,
DeLisa

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

What Made it to the End of the Road?

Since I started my trip with a packing list, I thought I’d let you know what’s in my backpack at the end of the trail…

4 Gap T-shirts (replaced midway in Tokyo)
3 pair of light pants
1 pair of jeans (didn’t wear them much, but when I did I was glad to have ‘em)
5 pair of shorts (brought 1 and picked up 3 along the way)
1 dress (wore it only 4 or 5 times, but felt like my old self for awhile)
1 batik skirt –my favorite item
Mirco-fiber athletic shell and pull over (thanks Julie and Tom)
3 souvenir t-shirts
5 light tank/halter tops
1 long sleeved cotton shirt
2 sarongs
1 bikini
7 pair of panties
3 bras
3 pair of sandals
1 silk sleep sheet—no this is my favorite item
1 travel towel
Full stock of toiletries, including one Rx of antibiotics (took 3 with me)
Converter and bag of cords
Camera
Dive computer, mask, snorkel and log book
Blow dryer
Well-worn playing cards
A stack of Photo CD’s, post cards and journals
A few souvenirs
An empty moneybelt!

The big pack weighs about 34 lbs, my toiletries pack weighs about 15 lbs and my day pack weights 2 lbs, so I've essentially seen the world carrying 51 lbs around. I should be in better shape than this!

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

The Last Resort



Ellaidhoo is one of 80 tourist resorts in the Republic of Maldives. It’s located in the North Ari Atoll (an atoll is a group of islands). The 4 star resort is medium size with about a 150-guest capacity. There are around 100 guests here now and it feels lively but not at all crowded. The only time I see everyone is at dinner. We have assigned tables and waiters like a cruise ship, but a few of us switch around just to confuse everyone.

The island has a reception/game area, bar, dining hall, gift shop, gym, and dive center. Everything is connected by sandy paths under palm trees (someone even racks the paths every morning). The whole island takes about 15 minutes to walk around. It’s amazingly beautiful, but almost feels a little bit artificial—a little Truman Show or Disney -esque.

The people change every few days. A bunch of fun English people left yesterday and a large group of Italians arrived. Instantly the people are more beautiful and the meals are more lively. My bungalow neighbors and diving partners are German. The one other independent world traveler I’ve met, David, is from Vancouver. So, it’s quite an interesting mix here at Ellaidhoo, with some people staying a month!

The diving has been gorgeous around Ellaidhoo, but a little tame after our cowboy antics on safari. The dive center is VERY organized, not at all like the “last one to the bottom is a rotten egg” approach of last week. I was sad to make my last Maldivan dive today!

Tomorrow I’ll spend my last day of the world tour lounging in the sun (I haven’t been this tan since high school), reading a book while sipping mango/passion fruit juice and thinking about how unbelievably fortunate I am to have had this experience!

Saturday, November 12, 2005

Penny for Your Thoughts

I’m spending my last few days in the sand thinking about what I’ve experienced over the past six months. As many of you know, I’m considering writing a “how to” book on travel for American’s and I’d love to hear any questions you’ve had about my trip. If I know what you’re wondering then I’ll be able to include those things in my journal. So, please send me any questions or observations you have about my little around the world adventure! DeLisaH@gmail.com

Thanks!

Paying for Paradise




Tropical luxury doesn’t come cheap. The Republic of Maldives is my splurge stop. The dive safari was reasonable at about $130 a day including my nice cabin, great food, and 3 dives a day. The rental equipment was another $150, but all in all a fantastic deal for the Maldives.

Ellaidhoo Resort is a steep $140 a day for my beautiful bungalow and half board (breakfast and lunch buffets). Everything else is extra here with dives at $47 each(compared with about $25 in Thailand and Indonesia) and even the gym is $7 per use. And, the painfully slow Internet is highway robbery at 50 cents a minute ($30 an hour!) compared with about $1-2 an hour in SE Asia. Unfortunately, this means photo downloading is out in the Maldives. Yikes, I’d better sign off and hit the free beach!

Da Plane Da Plane




Gunter and crew took me, Tom and Heike over to the airport on the Dhoni (traditional Maldivan boat) early yesterday morning so that we could catch seaplanes to our resorts. I spent a couple of hours in the Maldives Air Taxi terminal in a wicker chair with my feet in the sand watching the seaplanes come and go. The pilots and ground crew don’t wear shoes and most of the baggage coming and going looked like dive gear. They are doing some construction at the “terminal” and it was amazing to watch guys in flip flops and shorts moving steel beams. Not a piece of safety equipment in sight!

I was so excited to finally walk down the pier and hop on my first seaplane. (For Greg—it was a Canadian de Havilland DHC-6 100/200 series Twin Outter.) After the 20 minute flight it was surreal to watch the captain jump from the plane to a little floating dock and tie us up like a boat. We were picked up on the floating dock by a Dhoni and taken to Ellaidhoo Resort. Upon arrival I was handed a fresh coconut topped with a flower and straw and escorted to my beach bungalow. The room is adorable and has a luxurious outdoor bathroom. There’s even a big stone bathtub sitting under a coconut tree. The beach is about 10 yards from my front porch and the view through the palms is sensational.

It’s going to be a relaxing few days with no shoes here in my tropical paradise!

Friday, November 11, 2005

Down Under the Maldives




Diving in the Maldives is heaven under water! If it swims in the Maldives we saw it with a backdrop of colorful corals. This includes more sharks than I could count, but the best was a beautiful whale shark. It was aptly named at about 7-8 meters!

There were cool turtles, black spotted and eagle rays, moray eels, lion fish, scorpions and loads of gorgeous neon tropical fish. But, my favorites were the magnificent Manta Rays. They look prehistoric and full of grace! Twice we sat on the bottom and watched the show – Manta’s flying just above getting cleaned by little fish. It looked like a beautiful ballet. Diving doesn’t get any better!

I promised the crew to return soon with friends. Who’s in?

Ready, Set, Safari






I thought the Fantasy Island airport experience in Thailand’s Ko Samui was unbeatable. But, it is pretty cool to land on a runway that is exactly the size of a thin island. The most beautiful blue green water surrounded the plane and outside the airport is just a series of boat docks. So far, the Republic of Maldives is the coolest place ever!

I took a ferry over to Male, the main city in the Maldives where over 70,000 people live on a 2 by 1 kilometer island, in search of some dive gear. After an unproductive attempt to rent equipment, I boarded another small boat headed to the Nautilus One dive safari boat, my home for the next week. The boat was gorgeous and they had “all what I would need for diving” on board. I looked around and saw 10 cute Dutch guys and thought – yes you do! We hit the water for a check exactly 18 minutes after I climbed on board and we were off on an action packed dive safari!

In addition to the Dutch guys (26 – 40 years old), who knew each other from a university group like a fraternity, there was a really nice German couple, Tom and Heike, on board. Tom made his 200th dive on the trip and they shared all sorts of interesting food and drink they had smuggled into the Maldives. Our fearless leader, Gunter, is an adorable 23 year old Austrian dive guide who took us to the best dive sights around the Maldives, and he plays a mean game of cards.

We fell into an easy routine of getting up and in the water for the first dive at 6:45am (well most of it was easy), back for a big breakfast and relaxing until the next dive at about 11:30. Lunch was up next and more sun, reading and sleeping until the 3:30pm dive. That left time for watching a beautiful sunset, happy hour, dinner and cards until we fell into bed. I could get used to this!

Friday, November 04, 2005

What's Next?

I am sad to leave beautiful Sri Lanka, but the magic of the Maldives awaits! I fly to Male at the crack of dawn and will be whisked away to the Nautilus 1, a liveaboard dive boat. I will join 15 other passengers for a one week dive safari around the Maldives. The other passengers are from Europe, and I'm crossing my fingers that they're fun. At any rate, we'll be doing three dives a day, and I know that the fish will be great fun!

The Maldives are made up of 7000 coral islands that stretch for 1200 miles. I'll resurface on one of 200 inhabited islands on 11 Nov. to spend my last 5 days in paradise.

So, until 12 November think of me swimming with tropical fish!

Thursday, November 03, 2005

Who's Seeing Sri Lanka?

I was curious about the kind of travellers I’d meet in Sri Lanka, which is all little off the beaten backpack path. I’ve met some fantastic and inspirational people here!

In Kandy, I met two adorable English ladies, who were returning to Sri Lanka for the first time since they were stationed here in the war (WWII). One met her husband here, he'd recently passed away, and she was teary at seeing the country again. They were marvellous!

I also had dinner with an adorable young couple, from Sweden/Norway, who had just arrived for a 15 month project in a small town. They are working with locals on farming and environmental practices. They were so idealistic and kind. They had such great respect for the people of Sri Lanka and I couldn’t help but think that they must represent the best of their countries too.

Here in Hikkaduwa, I met James, the former chief of global operations for Shell, and current volunteer coordinator for a Tsunami project. He left his job to find something more rewarding to do in life and is working in Sri Lanka while he figures out his path. I admire his decision to make a big life change!

I also met some great surfers here. The waves are big and the crowd is relaxed. I really enjoyed meeting Anton, an English guy who is working in Bangalore for a year with a British Helicopter company. He’s trying to teach modern business practices to the Indians. We had such fun laughing about life in India! We shared the same reaction to the locals in Sri Lanka. Braced for the persistent worst in each interaction with locals -- it’s so pleasant to find that many people are just saying hello and not trying to sell you something. And, those who are making a sales pitch will leave when you say no thank you—this would never happen in India! I gave him my favourite book “Holy Cow” and was sad to see him head back to Bangalore.

The locals here are some of the kindest people I’ve met on my whole trip. Unlike many countries that see travellers as walking money bags, the people of Sri Lanka want to ensure that you are enjoying their amazing country as much as they do!

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Going to Galle



Today I tore myself away from my rigorous schedule of lounging under palm trees. I took the local train, which was a priceless experience (10 cents actually), to the town of Galle. The main attraction in the colonial city is the Galle Fort dating back to 1663. The fort, now a World Heritage Site, was built by the Dutch and provides a stunning walk around the rough coast at the bottom of Sri Lanka.

It was also fun to walk inside the fort to see the Dutch architecture. I was excited to see a large Methodist church inside the fort walls. Today alone I’ve seen two Buddhist monasteries from the train, several large Buddha statues, a Jain temple, countless Hindu shrines and a mosque.

The trip down to Galle was interesting, but I was happy to get back up the coast to my delicious schedule of doing nothing!

Hanging in Hikkaduwa




Tuesday, November 01, 2005

Heavenly Hikkaduwa


At long last I am in the sand on the SW coast of Sri Lanka! I chose the town of Hikkaduwa for it's great diving, but the weather hasn't cooperated this year and diving season hasn't begun yet. So, I'm lounging and relaxing in this tropical paradise.

Because of an unfortunate incident involving a mouse that liked my warm bed in Hill Country, I started looking at the best hotels in Wewala just south of Hikkaduwa. In this surfer town of fan-only beach bungalows, I found a spa-like hotel with an open entrance complete with infinity pool. I almost fell to my knees in thanks when I walked into The Reef. My zen room is nothing short of divine and I've already extended my stay in Sri Lanka to enjoy it longer!

I was stunned at the Tsunami damage when we drove along the beach rode. It looks like it happened yesterday. Not much has been built back along the beach, but there are workers in many of the beach front hotels and restaurants. The destruction was massive. There are tent cities set up and Red Cross drinking water stations around along with signs of thanks to the countries who are helping rebuild. At breakfast one morning the cute waitress told me that she loves the USA because they came in and built 25 houses immediately after the storm. There are still many aid workers here helping. I'm very glad I came here to spend my money where it's truly needed!

My days are spent taking long walks on the beach, reading under the palm trees, and watching the surfers ride huge waves. There's even a turtle nesting ground nearby and we see turtles swiming close to shore frequently. The locals couldn't be more friendly and my hotel staff is taking great care of me. I feel like a tropical princess here!