A Re-Introduction to Asia: Bali and Beyond

Welcome to an exciting new edition of my esteemed travel blog. Esteemed by me because I bloody love it. Flying in to Denpasar airport, which incidentally is no where near Denpasar, I got to Kuta beach. Kuta is what Khao San road in Bangkok is to Indonesia. Chock full of tourists piled up on beaches, wearing t-shirts with the Indonesian beer on it, buying all sorts of crap from the markets ranging from postcards to massive wooden penis shaped bottle openers. While Kuta lacks any sort of charm it was a useful re-introduction to South East Asia; there are a lot of tourists who roam these places on their holidays and these are the places to stay clear of! On the other hand, the Westernised Indonesian food was delicious and I had a good wander along the beach front.

From Kuta I selected to go North to Ubud. Famed for being the cultural heart of Bali and it was very apparent that we were out of the tourist center. Ubud is a very small town built up over the years around what they dub the 'Holy Monkey Forest Sanctuary'. I was quite dubious when I went to visit the monkey forest being as it is plastered over all the tourist pamphlets and pictures of monkeys all over the place didn't seem likely. I was proved very wrong, however. There were monkeys everywhere! And cheeky bastards they are too! If you have any food on you they know about it and they want it. It was really good fun and the complex/forest was surprisingly big and full of mini-temples and waterfalls.

Ubud market was another fascinating experience. Being as I have seen many markets it all seems a bit samey, especially as the markets all sell the same crap all over SE Asia. Again, I was proved wrong in Ubud's market. It was a crazy place with very narrow pathways packed with stalls, then suddenly you find you've gone up 2 flights of stairs and are looking over the the multi-leveled mayhem below all out in the open. Obviously the sellers are still as pushy as the all other Asian markets.

We decided the best way to see places around Ubud was by use of a rental motorbike. It was brilliant being back on bikes again, especially as we got lost a couple of times as well! Our destination was Gunung Kawi, but we had more fun on the bikes driving on roads through dense forest that would suddenly open up to huge rice terraces. Gunung Kawi was hyped up a lot in the Lonely Planet as one of Bali's top sights. It was interesting seeing the temple that wasn't really a temple. It was a bunch of 20' shrines cut into the wall along a valley and was actually quite impressive.

Following day we opted for a visit to one of the volcano's for a night time trek. We opted for Mt. Batur. We had a guide, Madé. He was a really funny little man and he had a driver take us to the base of the mountain, which he couldn't find. We asked him if we were lost and his reply was "Um, yes. We are a little bit lost" and he was distraught that we might be unhappy. We thought it was hilarious that we couldn't find the giant mountain in front of us! Eventually he got going in the right direction and we started to ascend the mountain. The walk in the dark was quite tough and mostly uneventful. That was until we heard music coming from somewhere. Some sort of electro, rave stuff. Next thing I know we are walking through a rave full of drugged up, zombie looking hippies at 4am with pounding rave music in our ears! At first it was funny and very surreal but I was actually quite annoyed at the whole thing, mostly the music kind of messed up the ambiance of the place. It took about an hour and a half to get to the top and it was still dark. Mt. Batur is some 1700 meters above sea level and being as it is a volcano we were sat by the giant crater that dropped 100 meters below us. As it got a bit lighter we could see the steam rising from the crater and in some places you can feel the heat coming out of crevices in the rock. Just about when the sun came up the whole place was suddenly swarming with wild monkeys! The sunrise was impressive even thought it was quite cloudy. And with the light and the mist around the volcano it looked stunning! It took an hour to get back down and when we met up with Madé he wanted to show us more.

Madé took us to a plantation of coffee, chocolate and various fruits. We tried a few different things and watched them grind the coffee into powder to be packaged and sold. Bali coffee is great! He also took us to a really good view from the top of a set of rice terraces where we got some very postcard-esque pictures.

The following morning we left for Lovina at the north coast of Bali. On the way there we stopped at Bali's biggest waterfall, the Gitgit waterfall. There was a lot of rain around the mountains and because of that the waterfall was a raging torrent and some of the paths incredibly slippery. I couldn't get many good pictures because of the rain but it was quite a sight! Lovina is a nice place but the beach isn't too great. It is made up of black sand, presumably because of the volcanic rock. Lovina is very quiet but we still found a bar with some cheap cocktails and a local band. On one morning we went out to see the famous Lovina dolphins. The boat that took us out to sea was basically a canoe with a motor on the back and some poles out to the side to keep it balanced. When we got far enough out to sea it was a little disappointing to see that there were about 100 other boats doing likewise. It made the dolphin watching experience a bit less magical since as soon as someone spotted any dolphins, all the boats suddenly hurtle towards them. We still saw a fair number of them so I was happy enough!

We got a minibus back to Kuta and stayed in possibly the worst guest house I have ever seen! We stayed in Kuta a couple more days for Briony's birthday. It was a funny night in a club that advertised a 'snow party' but it was a lot more like a rain party. I thought there must have been a fire or something with the water coming down from the ceiling! Needless to say we were all soaking wet and very drunk!

We left Kuta for Gilimanuk to get the ferry across to Java. The intention was to go to another volcano, Mt Bromo, but when we got to the town near there the rain was so bad that all the roads were completely flooded. It didn't stop people trying to drive almost waist deep through it on there motorbikes, until of course the motorbikes stopped working! So we cut out losses and headed for the next major city, Surabaya. Surabaya is a stark contrast to Kuta. We didn't see a single white person the entire time we were there! It also meant no western restaurants so we had lots of delicious street food. I watched the FA Cup final in a really expensive hotel and since the place we were staying in was such a dive it was quite nice pretending to be rich!! The hotel we were staying in doesn't have a shower, just a trough of cold water and a small bucket.

Catching the train from Surabaya to Yogyakarta (or Jogja as it's called here) was somewhat reminiscent of the train rides in China. The 'ekonomie' class meant little leg space, lots of people goggling at us, tons of hawkers walking up and down the train and of course a very lengthy ride! It was worth it for the price - under 2 pounds for a 9 hour ride - but there's no way I could do that overnight. I am in Jogja now and it's a really nice city from what I have seen so far.

Looking forward to the rest of Indonesia and beyond.

Back on the Road

Where to begin!? I am in Perth right now having just met up with Briony for the first time since she left Bundaberg about 5 months ago. I have finished working and have saved enough money to travel now so let me fill you all in on my happenings since my last blog nearly 6 months ago (hard to believe it has been that long).

November and December passed with little note. Christmas was fantastic. Had a brilliant lunch out and some drinks on the beach. We got really lucky with the weather as it rained for about a week before and after Christmas day, but not on Christmas itself. We had a game of football between all the lads in the hostel: France vs. Rest of the World. France think it finished [FR 7 - 6 RotW] and Rest of the World think it finished [FR 6 - 7 RotW]. This caused arguments-a-plenty and towards the end of the game was rather vicious. All was forgotten after as we sat on the beach and into the night drank the many eskies of beer we brought along. New Years was excellent also. Had a party in the hostel involving drinking games that originated practically all over the world. This led to no-one knowing the rules of any game and proceeded to just drink a lot anyway.

January took its course and created possibly the best room friendship the hostel has ever known. Room 9: Ian, Andy, Bernie, Matt, Mark and Krystiana. I don't think we really left the room throughout most of January and I don't think one group has ever had so many inside jokes! Late January I got bored of my "Jenga stacking" job and worked on a mango and lychee farm for a short while. Soon enough a permanent job came about and at the start of February I was working on a sweet potato farm for the nicest farmers you could ever meet. The work, though difficult, was very rewarding and at points very fun! Occasionally they would give us a post-work beer or pie, while talking about football and the hostel.

I worked a lot from this time until the end of April when I eventually left Bundy. Pedro, Carole and Mick took me and Andy out for dinner a couple of weeks before we left, which was really nice of them and they even through a little party on the last day of work. It was a little sad to leave them and disappointing that I hadn't tried to get on that farm earlier on. Having seen everyone I had made friends with in the hostel come and go it was a very strange experience for me to leave also. Matt and Mark had left a week before us, Krystiana a few weeks before that and Bernie a day after Me and Andy. The group had finally been split up. Saying goodbye to everyone at 3:30am with no sleep whatsoever was a very odd experience. Like it was happening to someone else. Even on the bus it still felt like I wasn't actually leaving Bundy.

The bus was taking us to Harvey Bay where we embarked on a 3 day trip to the infamous Fraser Island. We had a fantastic time at Fraser and got to see the best attraction there- Lake McKenzie, the day before it was due to be closed until September. McKenzie is a huge freshwater lake surrounded by the finest, whitest sand in the world. The water is so blue and the whole scene was beautiful. Driving around the island was fantastic fun. I had driven a lot of big 4x4's around Bundy and the farms, but this was completely different. I was a bit disappointed we didn't get stuck in the sand though. Everyone who had been told us you get stuck a lot and that's half the fun! Driving along the beach was cool as well. The east coast of Fraser is just one huge beach that is used as a highway to get to all the attractions on Fraser Island. We stayed at an Aboriginal owned camping ground and had some drinks with a few other groups doing a similar trip. The second day we visited Indian Heads, the highest viewpoint overlooking the sea at Fraser. We caught glimpses of fish, stingrays, jellyfish and just as we were about to leave we spotted a school of about 7 dolphins! The third day we walked over some sand dunes to another lake not quite as exciting as Lake McKenzie but still very nice.

We stayed a night in Harvey Bay before going to Brisbane where we met up with Josh and Paul. It was brilliant to see them and a stark reminder of just how long I have been away from home for. I hadn't seen Paul since the day before I left home a year ago March and Josh a year ago January!! We had an excellent time in Brisbane and visited a couple of art galleries, a Chinese festival, a man-made beach next to the river, and went on a couple of nights out with the boys. It was a really good few days out and a great way to get out of a working mentality and into a traveling mind frame. On Sunday evening we flew to Perth and met up with Briony yesterday. Looking forward to a few days chilling out in Perth (it really is chilly over here, but that could just be because I am used to the heat of the east coast now). We fly to Bali on Thursday and I shall keep all my avid readers continually updated on everything I am doing and seeing. Sorry I have kept you waiting so long, but I haven't had too much to chat about in 8 months of living in Bundy!

Wish me luck!
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