Blogs from Canggu, Bali, Indonesia, Asia
August 10th 2011
After what was a thrilling and easy 2 weeks with everything being organised for me, I was released into the big wide world.. well almost. Lynn, Betsy, Bella and I all shared a taxi to southern Bali and Lynn, Bella and I went shopping, then for lunch and to the local beach near where Lynn was staying, before I jumped in a taxi for Echoland Hostel near echo beach in Canggu. This place was exactly what I needed; it was a quiet, modern hotel/hostel with friendly owners and close proximity to a beach with restaurants, surf and sand which wouldn't look out of place in a sandpit. My selected accomodation consisted of a 6 bed dorm room which was barely large enough to contain two 3 bed bunks and 6 lockers with a bathroom attached to ... read more
April 29th 2011
After a particularly busy time at work, and the weather in Auckland starting to cool down, I was very excited about my trip to Bali. A group of eight of us had booked a luxury villa in Canggu. It promised a pool, four large double bedrooms, a chef and a pool boy. It did not disappoint - heaven! It soon became very hard to leave Baraka Villa . Our flights were delayed two hours, and then arrived without my luggage, so we spent a further hour at the airport while I filled in forms and tried to get some sensible information. We bumped our way through the narrow lanes, navigating around the potholes on the truly dreadful road, and had countless calls to the villa trying to find the house, so when we finally arrived at ... read more
January 5th 2011
The Pink View We have spent the last 5 days on and off wondering whether Bali needs rounding up. In many ways it doesn't - we didn't actually see that much after all. For all of that, there is much to be said of Bali but I just don't quite know where to start. Gregg and I agree, I think, that much of our time in Bali falls into the stag category - 'what happens on the stag, stays on the stag' but not because we spent a month in alcoholic oblivion. Quite the opposite. Our memory of those thirty days puts us next door to paradise and round the corner from Eden. Sure, as with every other South-East Asian Country that we have visited, there were annoyances, cultural misunderstandings and copious amounts of bottled ... read more
Insomniacs Anonymous gear up for moving on
Published: January 8th 2011Asia » Indonesia » Bali » Canggu
January 4th 2011
3 January 2010 Today is our penultimate day in Bali and we are both starting to feel somewhat sad. The Christmas decorations have found their way into the bin and we have already started packing. Mr & Mrs P never usually pack ahead of time - what is happening to us? The day started with yoga…well, it was supposed to and we were awake but just didn’t quite make the transition from bed to yoga studio in time for a class. The fortunate thing about taking classes at a yoga studio is that there is always a different class to attend if you miss one so we decided that we would go to a 4pm class and run a few last minute errands in the meantime whilst we still had the bike available to us ... read more
January 2nd 2011
New Years Day 2011 After a brilliant night last night, we both slept in until nine without and problem, arising in time to go to our morning Yoga class. There were no hangovers in sight, but that didn’t stop the Balinese continuing the party with further fireworks as we arrived a Desa Seni (as Lou has all ready told you) however I did start to wonder if they had indeed stopped at all, or if we just slept through them all night as they continued? One of the mysteries that will never be solved I suppose, like the tree falling over in the woods. Anyway we both felt rather virtuous being one of only a few to make it to the 10:15am morning Yoga, the first session of the New Year. The class was not ... read more
Bringing in 2011 the Balinese Way; or Fireworks, fireworks and more fireworks
Published: January 2nd 2011Asia » Indonesia » Bali » Canggu
December 31st 2010
30 December 2011 With Gregg improved and available for entertainment, life is getting back to normal - whatever that may be. Unfortunately, and again, we managed to sleep through the morning yoga class. I like to think that we are taking the opportunity to go wherever the wind blows and that, today, it wasn’t blowing in the direction of Desa Seni. Just to clarify, this is quite different from laziness. Since neither of us took the opportunity to celebrate Gregg’s birthday by raising a glass, there was a definite absence of hangovers this morning but there was rain. More rain. Grey skies and rain. Quite contrary to expectation, I can say with a confidence that we will be leaving Bali with paler skin than we were sporting upon our arrival. Since we aren’t here to ... read more
December 29th 2010
28 December 2010 After a decidedly bad night’s sleep, a combination of sickness coming back with a vengeance and the Balinese weather - howling gales in the night blowing the external blinds into the windows with such ferocity that we both thought the windows were going to break, we weren’t very chirpy this morning. The result being that we missed the early morning class, and that was the only one that we were planning on going to today. We decided after a very lazy morning recovering, that as the fridge was empty we needed supplies, so we got on the bike and headed out to Seminyak Square, to visit the deli/grocer for some provisions, and whilst we were there we also had a little look at in the book shop, and the clothes shops that ... read more
December 27th 2010
26 & 27 December 2010 I have spent the last few days whilst waiting for Gregg to prepare the last blog wondering how on earth I can possibly make two further days predominantly written off due to illness sound more interesting and inspiring than they were. The truth is that I can’t. So, I am not even going to try. Instead, I’ll tell you a little bit more about Bali. Before I head off in that direction, I will sum up the last two days in the following two sentences. Gregg’s stomach was improved enough to accompany me to Desa Seni for my yoga class by the afternoon of 27th, although he wasn’t up to participating in the class but, instead, sat in the restaurant supping on Early Grey tea and surfing (intermittently, I am ... read more
December 25th 2010
Christmas in Paradise? Maybe not, I’ll explain…. Christmas Eve We had planned to go to class this morning. The limited schedule of Yoga meant that instead of 4 classes to choose from we had only 2. The first, and the one we really wanted to do was 10:15 am. However I awoke prior to the alarm as after spending nearly 4 months on the road, and making it two weeks into our 8th Asian country, I finally succumbed to Delhi Belly (or should that be Bali belly?) After 4 visits to the bathroom, I managed to drop Lou off at Yoga so she could go, and make it back to the flat in one piece. Some light snoozing, a few more trips to the bathroom and a bit of TV and the 1.5hour class soupled with ... read more
Merry Christmas from Bali and it's amazing how much I can write about so little
Published: December 24th 2010Asia » Indonesia » Bali » Canggu
December 23rd 2010
Another surprise for you folks as, once again, I am typing this blog on the second of the days in question. Alas, once more, I am already struggling to remember how we filled yesterday. Is it that, since our days now have an element of routine to them, the minutiae no longer find themselves logged in the tiny filing cabinets in our brains, or have they just decided to go on holiday for the last glimmering moments of 2010? You decide. I can hardly believe that we are now two days away from Christmas. How on earth did that happen? I think that Gregg and I deserve to pat ourselves on the back for having hatched such an awesome plan to make the last few months seem to pass more quickly. As we sat on the ... read more
