Vražji Prolaz Deep Cave Cache

We started off bright and early, eager to start our adventures! I got the car ready while Mag asked directions from some mermaids, which was pretty futile because we got lost anyway! Well not really lost, we were just too impatient and thought we were lost when we were actually on the right track!

We finally made our way to the little town of Skrad.

Vražji Prolaz Geocache - We've been watching this cache with anticipation for a long time before our trip. A cache in a deep cave sounds like a cool challenge for the IndianaJanes duo! LOL...



We were super excited as we made our way towards the cave in the freezing cold!! Brrrr...


..but our spirits were lifted by the clean air and the trickling spring that flowed next to the path.


It was beautiful...!


At some point in this picturesque gorge, we had to walk on these steel walkways and steps. Some parts looked quite worn out but luckily for us, nothing gave way!


After a long climb and some huffing and puffing and thanking our gym workouts that gave us stamina, we finally got to the HUGE cave! The orange line shows the path we took to enter it.


And from the inside-out.


This cave was DARK!!!! Glad we brought our extra-bright headlamps. The ground was slimey and slippery and we slowly made our way inside looking around for the cache.

We found a little pond and I even made my way around it to look into some crevice on the other side. Who knows what lived in that water...


After some searching and banging our heads on the low roof, we managed to find the cache to our great relief!! Our first cache in Croatia!


Actually, the cave is much deeper and we could've explored more if we wanted to but being the dainty (wusses) ladies that we are, we decided to leave that to the professional cavers.


What an exhilarating find!! We made our way happily out of the canyon and on to the next cache..

Here's a short video I took with my little Canon Ixus camera:


FOOTNOTE:
I wonder if we would've been so eager to try this if we knew what Vražji Prolaz means! Did a little googling and found that it means Devil's Passage or Devil's Pass!! Glad I only found out now... cos looking at the pictures again with this new knowledge makes the cave seem quite erie. Who knows what could have been lurking around the DARK DARK corner within the DEEEEEEEEP CAVE.... !!!!!

FURTHER FOOTNOTE:
Reading CK's comment to this entry reminded me that I didn't include this picture of OTHER PEOPLE!!!! CK, see...!! We were not alone... (maybe in all sense of the word)

Ristorante Da Valentino

11 Jalan Bingka (along Rifle Range Road)

We FINALLY FINALLY managed to book a table at this (by now) infamous restaurant, known for its hospitality and good food, and that's tucked away somewhere in Bukit Timah! Wish we stayed near the area because whenever we had the time, the place was always fully booked. We invited Beng to come along (so that we could order more dishes!) thinking that we were doing her a favour with our table reservation, and who would've guessed that she'd already been here TWO other times for dinner!!! Oh well, we shouldn't be too surprised because there's nothing that prevents us serious food lovers from looking for the best and the yummiest.

You may now gawk at the pictures for a while...


We had 2 starters, meatballs and tomino cow cheese wrapped in parma ham and fried. The meatballs were too salty but still very flavourful, mostly because I love anything that is slathered in tomato-based sauce.

The cheese was amazing! The parma ham tasted good (for once). There's a Chinese phrase to describe good food that is translated (literally) as "eat already, mouth can move". As opposed to, not willing to move the mouth when the food isn't nice. Does it make sense?? LOL...

We had insider information that this lamb was cooked by mamma Valentino herself!! Immediately, without hesitation, we ordered it! How could we not??

We also ordered the Osso Bucco - sooooo gooooood. The meat just fell off the bone and again, I enjoyed the tomato-based sauce.


Beng wanted to try the lobster pasta and I must confess I was more than a little glad that she suggested this. And we were not disappointed at all!! The alien looking critter was HUUUUUGE!! The flesh was firm and sweet, the pasta coated in creamy pink sauce was not too 'jelat'.

I guess this is the best compliment that a diner can offer the cook - a plate that is scraped clean, just short of being licked clean!



I guess that was quite a lot already for the 3 of us, don't you think? hehe...

Nooo... there's always room for desserts!!! We had tiramisu and a tatufo flambé with sambuca, an anise-flavoured liqueur. Enjoyed the former more but the latter was more entertaining.

Here are 2 little videos of the flaming tatufo!


Looks deceptively like a muffin but it's chocolate tatufo, which is essentially just ice cream.

This one was taken by Beng:


In the end, we didn't order that lovely ruccola & parmesan pizza that some of the other tables had. It's HUGE, at least 16 inches I think. Oh well,... next time then...

Oh yes!! Possible geocaching oppotunities near this restaurant are...
ESCAPE From The Jungle (GCTDXV) - nearest
End of the Woods (GCRBCK)
Safety Inside (GCZAYN)

There are actually many others, but I don't want to give you the ones that will make you really stinky and sweaty because you still want to look presentable for your meal... hehe... ;-)

Buon appetito!

Hot Dog!

We had to check up on a geocache (Trickle Trickle Splash Splash) we hid here and DecoyDog (Chewie) went along with us!

While we were distracted with trying to look 'cool' and act 'natural', Chewie decided to take a cool dip yesterday and wondered RIGHT INTO THE LITTLE STREAM!!


She just flopped onto her tummy right there in the algae-covered rock!! LOL..


By the time we noticed, she had her little belly all wet and was enjoying the cool stream ;-) haha... Isn't she cute???

OH .. btw, Olivia Newton John is coming to Singapore!??!! I hope she doesn't sprain her hips while jivin' on stage to Xanadu!!

A Lazy Saturday Morning

... what do we do? where do we go? what's for breakfast?
[theme song plays in the background]

New and interesting cache spotted in Bukit Timah! Once again, IndianaJanes and guest geocacher, rambutangirl, pick up their geo-backpacks and zoomed off in their geomobile for another adventure! This time, it was ROCK CLIMBING in Bukit Timah!



Hope you enjoyed that ;-) Oh and btw, TFTC stands for "Thanks for the Cache". It's what geocachers write to thank the cache owner.

The same evening, we caught a great movie, 300



I was prepared for the gore and expected the movie to be overly animated but I found that the computer graphics, although used extensively, did not distract nor bother me too much.

Gerard Butler was powerful as King Leonidas and we got to see quite a lot of Lena Headey too. It's rated R in the states but only M(18) here so I'm sure they still cut stuff out.

There was a surprising amount of dialogue too.. LOL.. and thankfully nothing too corny. I guess for one-on-one fighting in a battlefield, there has to be lots of pep talk! What do we modern day people know anyway...?

Don't you just love the abs though... Check out the "300" official website and watch how they trained for the movie.

Definitely one movie to watch on the big screen and not on your little PC thingie! ;-) Now, off we go to the gym to do more crunches!!

Geofeasting

These photos were taken some time ago on 3 Feb 2007.

That Saturday, Beng joined us IndianaJanes for a long day of geocaching in the jungle. We did 2 multi-caches with 2 other geocachers whom we happened to meet. We broke for a very late lunch at 3:30pm at Galbiati Gourmet Deli and had a late dinner at 8:30pm at Auntie Kim's Korean Restaurant.

GALBIATI GOURMET DELI
The Rail Mall, 400 Upper Bukit Timah Road
We spent quite a long time searching for this particular cache and it was 3pm before we finally couldn't stand our growling stomachs anymore. We marched into Galbiati in our muddy shoes for a late lunch. The deli was as usual almost empty but enough regulars came in to buy takeaways. We were introduced to this deli by a fellow geocacher who enclosed a $10 voucher of the place for the "First-to-Find".

Here's Mag looking quite exhausted. LOL...


We had a light lunch of Portobello mushrooms, grilled vegetables, stuffed chicken, tomatoes & cheese. Beng enjoyed 2 glasses of wine with cheeese and we resisted dessert!





Side note : so glad I managed to retrieve Mag's yellow umbrella I left behind the last time we visited the restaurant...

Re-energised, we proceeded to complete the caches for the day! Yay!!
Our log on Choo Choo Cache. Click it to see Beng's fancy green kids georgie Crocs!

Auntie Kim's Korean Restaurant
265 Upper Thomson Road, 6452-2112

After cleaning up and resting a little at Beng's place, we adjourned to Auntie Kim's Korean Restaurant for some hearty Korean food!

It was hell trying to find parking there! But after a couple of rounds, I managed to snag a lot very near the restaurant.

The restaurant is small and cosy, with private rooms for small groups. Nice decor. I felt bad stepping in with my mud-caked shoes...









Mag brought some nice letter paper & envelopes and we passed the paper around and wrote to LH. For reasons only known to us, we're glad the letter would never make it to her..!



So, any takers for our next IndianaJanes geocaching adventure? Lots of geofeasting would follow...!!!! ;-)

IndianaJanes in Action!

A filmlet dedicated to all the brave Singapore geocachers who dare to trek where no sane Singaporean has trekked before... :-)

Camera, Lights, Action!!

IndianaJanes and the Saigon Saga

Reliable information from the grapevine tells us that FOUR geocaches were sitting pretty in Sassy Saigon! No time to waste!

Fade in... Saigon

Hot dusty day, the traffic is relentless, dense groups of motorbikes rush past. Intense heat creates a shimmering mirage in the distance.

SAIGON
January 2007

The infamous IndianaJanes of Singapore geocaching fame (bwahaha..!) stand by the street staring helplessly at the endless traffic.

IJ2(gulps): We cannot cross this road.

IJ1: Now, IJ2, we don't want to be discouraged by every little thing.

Together, IJ1 and IJ2 steps bravely off the curb and into the oncoming traffic and lo & behold, a path magically opens up (like in the Wizard of Oz)! They tread slowly but surely across the road.

Woof!! Woof!! Is that DecoyDog over there or an imposter? Nah.. must be one of the native doggles.


IndianaJanes, now masters of road-crossing, weaved through the crowds easily, invisible to the masses yet with clear objectives in mind.

First stop - Saigon's First Micro.

Dodging health conscious Vietnamese muggles playing games and doing their evening stretching exercises in pajamas, IndianaJanes arrived at the location in no time.



IJ2: Oooops! I dropped a coin...!
IJ1: No worries, I'll pick it up for you. (groan,.. bend,.. voila!.. Cache at hand!!)



Brimming with confidence from their first success, IndianaJanes run in full stride to their next stop - ICE CREAM at Kem Bach Dang and a nice hot shower. Tomorrow will be another long day of geocaching and adventures!! Along the way, pink piggies wished them Good Luck! They're gonna need it...



Fade out...

Fade in - dense forests far far away in Cu Chi, a place rumoured to be a city above ground as well as UNDERground!! The challenge here is to find a virtual cache. At ground zero, there would be an object of significance.

Dangerous booby traps were scattered along pathways, faraway gun shots echo in the air, muggles in green uniforms stare with daggers in their eyes at IndianaJanes but our heroes march on bravely.



Scowling men with guns did not scare IndianaJanes. In fact, IJ1 flashed him back with one of her most hedious smiles!



After squeezing through A4 sized holes in the ground that we can barely fit through, crawling on all-fours like the Vietcongs in narrow tunnels underground and fighting tigers with AK47's, the IJ's, covered with dust and sweat, finally arrived at GZ (ground zero) and scored another winner!



Fade out...

Fade in - Fade in...!?! - oh..there's some problem with the fade in tonight.. See photo. Dark streets of Saigon was a good cover for young courting couples along the mekong river and in a little park in the middle of the road where our 3rd virtual cache stand - tall and still, 10 metres above the ground, finger pointing forwards.

Camera shutters were not doing their jobs tonight and refused to focus properly in the dim light so we left soon after taking down the name of the hero.



Finally, the forth and final cache in Saigon - another easy virtual, sitting just outside a hotel. One of those taxi in, taxi out geocaches. We had to find the name of the person who laid the foundation stone of the building and we were surprised to learn who it was!

The date has been photoshopped out so you can't cheat, if you're a geocacher hoping to find the answer here!

Saigon - another city conquered by IndianaJanes - fearless geocachers, tourists in disguise! We march off to find another nice coffee place for a well deserved cuppa and club sandwich, and to ponder about the exciting Saigon Saga and plan the next expedition! Where to next???



Fade out..

Singapore Geocoin

A new Singapore Geocoin is in circulation! This one came all the way from Maryland and it was dropped into a Sentosa geocache yesterday! Mag woke up early this morning and went all the way there to retrieve it!!! So WHO's the crazy one now, huh????? :-)

Our geocaching profile (IndianaJanes) has the logo for the Singapore Geocoin now!
*proud smile* Here it is posing with a Green Jeep 4x4 travel bug.


Click to see our full profile page of all the geocoins and travel bugs that we have helped move around the world!

Just Another Saturday

I had my first Tai Chi class at the gym Sat morning. It was surprisingly tough but the shi-fu talked a lot so it seemed like a lot of rest time. We were doing the 24 Forms of Tai Chi. The movements were controlled and graceful, slow yet somehow you have to use your inner energy (nei-gong). The shi-fu spoke about stance, balance and using his back. Made us hold his tummy and the small of his back while he breathed into his tummy. You could feel not just the tummy expand, but the back expand as well. Amazing!

I was reminded of Jackie Chan in one of his old kungfu movies where the shi-fu got him to do various back-breaking poses for 8 hours or something! "Hold this 'ma-bu' now!" "Carry these 2 huge buckets of water". Of course we did no such thing! If we learnt something from those wuxia xiaoshuo or Kungfu movies, it's that one can only be good at it with constant practice (ku-lian), practice and practice until almost die. In movies, they always fast forward the suffering but in reality, I don't have the tenacity to do it every night or even every week. Since I'm not a die-hard Tai Chi enthusiast and I don't have a personal Shi-Fu to torture me, I won't be so hardworking. Hence, I will not become a Tai Chi expert.

Next, geocaching! Yayyyyy! We did 4 caches on Sat.

We finally completed Singapore Challenge 1. It took us almost 3 months! It wasn't because there were so much to find but because the 4 checkpoints were so far apart that we didn't want to find it all in one day! One of them was at Ubin. The final cache took us to a place we were familiar with - Kent Ridge Park. There we were again and we didn't walk the boardwalk again!! I guess we only had 2 things on our minds at the time. To find the cache!!! And to escape from the mosquitoes!!! (for Mag lah)

I get a few bites here and there but it's amazing how I tend to escape the full wrath of the mozzies when she's around. hehe.. They all seem to gravitate towards her and around her. I keep telling her that the mosquito patches attract them!!

We found the containers wet and yucky!! The logbook was damp but we could still write in it.

Cleaning and sunning the contents.


Notice the coins? It was a total of 95¢ !! They were rotting together with the batteries so we decided to take it and use it to subsidise 2 McDonald's ice cream cones!! A sinful but yummy treat after all our hardwork!

Here we are goofing around while doing the West Coast cache, showing off what IndianaJanes can do... (yeah, right!)


We saved a Mamsell in distress from the cache (it's just a Travel Bug lah) and Chewie gave her a ride. She's been scalped but DecoyDog saves the day!!
Poor Chewie doesn't look too happy that I made her pose that way for so long, while I tried to take a sharp picture without flash! Hahaha...
Oopsie! Just realised you can see her coffeeshop from this angle! :Þ




Find me?


The last 2 caches (Under "Water" cache and No Name cache) were mosquito havens so they were just quickie sign and run affairs.

Under "Water" cache - not sure what this structure was used for but it's now abandoned and really rusting up. This is at Portsdown Road.


NoName cache is nearby. Mag armoured herself with 'anti-mozzie' raincoat after the attack at under 'water'! LOL..


We saw a locomotive pass on the tracks minutes after we crossed it! *phew* No chance to play Penelope Pitstop going, 'heeeelp! heeeelp! save meee...!'


And finally, to end the day, we had dinner Da Paolo Pizza Bar at Chip Bee Gardens. On the whole it was a pleasant meal. The salad was good and the starter (of Portobello mushrooms) reminded me of Italy. In the middle of the meal, Mag tells me there are dead cows on the ceiling! I thought she sees dead cows (a la Sixth Sense, maybe this is cow sense??)... The ceiling was lined with white/brown cow hide lah.

But DON'T order the Americano here! If, like everybody else (including the 58 million in Italy), you think it's going to be just black coffee, you're wrong! Their 'interpretation' of Americano comes with walnut liquor, cream(!) and chocolate chips! And even though we were only served the black coffee (which we wanted), we were still charged for the full Americano! sheesh! Lesson learnt - always check your bills.