La Nouvelle Caledonie avec ma chere Rama et Emmanuel!

Welcome to the beautiful island of New Caledonia, situated in the Pacific Ocean, neighbouring New Zealand, Australia, Fiji, Tahiti and other small islands ...

One of the many amazing meals with the Micolou-Kane family :)  Great conversations, delicious food (and Stanley's!) and unforgettable moments for all of us... Thanks guys for making us feel home after all these months been 'homeless' :D

 Voila, 'LE FROMAGE', apparently Rama and Emmanuel read our minds before we arrived, as the only thing we had craved in this trip has been Real Cheese... well, even before we had this conversation, these huge blocks of cheese were served on the table... no words to describe the feelings!!

 While Emmanuel rehearsed for his drumming function, we had a great catch up. For the good old times :)











Emmanuel playing the drum in the centre, wearing a green T-shirt.

Sitting down a Flame or Flamboyant tree

                               

 Here we are posing at the Kanak museum in Noumea. The Kanaks are the local inhabitants of New Caledonia who now live together with the French. They use wood craving to reproduce human or animal figures to protect their lands. It is a costume when visiting a Kanak tribe, to bring a piece of fabric or cloth and give it to the tribe Chief in order to ask for permission to visit his land.

Night life in NC. The crazy girls are in town... you better shut down any Karaoke!! (This should have been the advice... but unfortunately they were not aware of us just yet....) Here we are singing Ali's choice of "I've got you babe" by Sonny and Cher http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzYBuKaQ83s Nice picture, awful sound! ... LOL

Exploring the island with Rama's Kanak friend, shinny happy people!!




 












Little hoola dancers in a South Pacific festival in Noumea, where Emmanuel played later.





 Once the kava (a grayish cold drink, bade from a root) is the right strength (as deduced from the colour), the ceremony master will call out the nickname of the first recipient using an old archaic formula ("kava kuo heka"). The touʻa will fill the cup and the cup is then brought, often by a young lady, to the intended chief, and brought back afterwards. Then the next name is called, and so forth.

But if you don't like Kava (which is very probable as it taste somehow Bitterly  Weird and it numbs your mouth too!) you can always have a super calorific Hawaiian cake... and do not attempt to weight yourself in a few weeks...  

A day in Noumea's aquarium... beautiful corals, and exotic fishes...











 Where's Wally ... I mean the fish??

Scuba diving ... sureee!! :P

Emmanuel playing with his drumming band, beautiful African music.

 Getting ready for a boat trip!.













 Our Kava tasting wasn't that pleasant (for me and Emmanuel at least!)... I tell you I rather stick to the chocolate cakes :D

 Bye bye Noumea, it has been a magical and super enjoyable week! Thanks to Rama, Emmanuel and Solana for treating us so well, we wish you many happy times together!

 

It has become famous for the aerial photography known as The Heart of Voh, a large formation of vegetation that resembles a heart seen from above.

Melaka, Singapore and New Caledonia, meeting great old friends!

 Our first night in magical Melaca. We got so lucky that just as we came to the city we were offered to inaugurate an amazing guest house! We got the key to the whole house and two beautiful double rooms to enjoy! Then, as we got out to have dinner we were also invited to some local food by these other 'new friends' Even if we asked for it, we couldn't have been any luckier... : D

Tower beer to celebrate our lucky night! But do not think is such a big tower... when you see it closer is not as impressive ...  but is still nice!

View from Melaca's hills. Melaca is a small town situated at the south west coast of Malaysia. It was colonized by the British, the Chinese the Portuguese and others, and there is loads of history in every corner of the town. It is for us a must seen place!

 Even after the tower beers, we managed to cycle the city pretty well!

 Ali and Nazareth (or Muasuma and Fatima) getting ready to enter a mosk. 











Welcome to Singapore, the city of the skyscrapers, the dollars and again, the prohibitions!. (Yes, it gets even worst than neighboring Malaysia, here you can not even chew gum!) 

The craziest building in town!. These three massive buildings are in fact a hotel complex, and on top of it guess what is there....

 This swimming pool!! Yes!, you are asked to pay 20 dollars just to enjoy the view of the highest swimming pool in the world, but luckily, we managed to convince Jumanjy (a security guy), and thanks to our scruffy backpacker look, we all 4 got in for free! :)

 So!, it all got to an end, after visiting the amazing city of Singapore, and a few hours later, we left Sam and Nazareth to continue our different world routes!,  We heading to the south islands, and them to the north. Muchas gracias por unos dias fantasticos chicos, os deseamos todo lo mejor!! :)

 Brief stop in Brisbane, Australian airport, before heading to New Zealand.

Saye Buleeee!!!! (means I can, well not many things allowed in Malaysia actually!!)

 Kuala Lumpur, a city of modernity, in which different cultures and religions merge everyday in what seems to be a balanced harmony. Malays, Indians and Chinese, Muslims, Christians and Buddhists alike.

 Dedicated especially to you Rama Kane :)

 The reflexology path. Just remove your shoes and walk through the different stones to cure your body of any illness. (Though the tiny stones cause more pain than gain!!)

 These are the ones that hurtttttt!!!! auchhh!!!!

 Many things are prohibited in here, but have a close look, even been 'in love' or look closely to your partner is banned in here!!

 I got asked to model in the park by this bunch of Malay photographers... feeling like a celebrity!!

 Batik painting, one of Edu's favourite pass times! This kind of painting consists in using warm wax to create  the shapes of what you want to paint and then apply fabric dye to colour in. Very relaxing!

 At the end I got involved in the art making too :)

What a small world!!! Here we are with Nazareth  and Fazia. Nazareth is an old friend from London/Spain who is travelling with Sam for a year in a round the world experience too, and luckily we got to spend so,days together(she's sitting in the middle). and Fazia  is a couch surfer that we met in Chiang Mai in Thailand and by pure coincidence was in the same place at the same time, so she joined us for a couple of days while visiting KL :)

 Fazia, Ali, Sam and Nazareth (and Eduardo taking the picture of course!)on the way to the Batu caves(or better the dodgy monkey infested caves...)

 The biggest religious statue ( or something like it, as people in Asia tend to apparently have the biggest or tallest, or highest everything...)

We got told off in this one...

 The Petronas towers ( with the highest sky bridge) and currently the highest twin towers still standing;

 If you want to go up to the sky bridge; wake up at 6a.m. and prepare yourself to queue for at least 2 or 3 hours and pay some Malaysian ringgits. At least we were in good company and the waiting was not too bad!

After 3 hours queue and another 3 of waiting we got to stand in the highest sky bridge :)