Sydney and Indonesia

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We had a quick 3 night stopover in Sydney, in that time we went to Bondi beach and I tried Lobster and chips very very delicious! We spent a morning wandering around Bondi beach and looking at the shops, in the afternoon we took the ferry from Circular Quay over to Manly beach which was beautiful and watched the sunset, had a lovely walk there and it was nice to feel a warm evening breeze! Day 2 we had a look around some parts of the town before heading off to Palm beach - where Home and Away is filmed, unfortunatly we didnt realise it was quite so far away from Sydney town 3hr bus ride each way! And when we got there there was no filming going on so I didnt get to see any of the cast, still enjoyed a lovely lunch there at summer bay cafe - not Alfs diner!! on the 3rd day our flight was leaving for bali at 3pm so we just had time to go to circular quay have a good look at the Opera House close up a very interesting piece of Architecture! As it was Saturday there were plenty of street performers we saw a lady get into and 18inch square box!! and a few “aboriginies” playing the digerydo! Was a fun morning when we got to the airport we had a right game as the check in lady said we couldnt board our flight cos our flight leaving Indonesia was in 5 weeks and standard visa on arrivals are for 28 days, even when we explained we had extended before and showed her she still would not let us check in so had to run around airport with all our luggage(the trolleys are 5AUD!!) and find someone who would help us, eventually we found the right lady who printed a piece of paper with a flight number and date on for 28 days later when we took it down to check in all was OK and we had about 30 minutes to board, wouldnt have been so bad if it wasnt probably the biggest airport i've ever been in and no travellators! We were knackered by the time we got on! Australia, we will return......
5 weeks in Bali!!
what better place to spend some time whilst on our epic trip! Bali was a favourite from last time and we thought just a few weeks would be great, we were right!
Starting in Kuta we unfortunatley had a few days of heavy tropical rain to start us off the beach was still a little untidy from the wet season and the unpaved roads were a nuisance when walking around in flip flops as all the mud flicks up your back, luckily the best laundry lady we have encountered was on hand to leave our clothes smelling like a summers day! After a week of hanging around and generally realxing we headed off to Lombok and Gili T (on the slow boat which takes 4 hrs to cross a 8 mile stretch of sea!!! followed by plenty of waiting at unfriendly peoples restaurants and a bus ride then a small boat ride!) 12 hrs later we arrived in Gili Trawanagan where we also had a great time when we were here before we found our way to Pondok Lita where we have so many fond memories and found our great friend Tomy stil working there as it had been 2 years and he didnt know we were coming it was great for him to remember our names after little obver a minute and for us to have the warm welcome we associated with this lovely place, the Gili Islands are a snorkellers dream and the underwater life is second to none ever day we snorkelled and saw so much marine life it is beautiful, after a fun 5 days it was time to say bye bye. But all was not lost as Tomy had his annual leave coming up in a couple of weeks and he so very kindly invited us to his home on Bali and to join in the celebrations of Galungan with his family.
Back in Bali we spent a couple of days in Ubud for a spot of pampering, indulged in a 2 hr mandi lulur where you get oil massage, oatmeal kindf scrub and then a flower petal bath and we also both got haircuts(mine went slightly better than darrens!!!) also tried for the first time “Babi Guling” (a roasted suckling pig) was pretty tasty once I discovered I liked the childs portion which didnt have any funky spicy sauce!! then it was back to Kuta momentarily to pick up our hire jimmy! (little 4 x 4) and off we set! We drove up the east coset to Candidasa where there was some great snorkelling off a small island and a beautifuld beach similar to Railay in Thaialnd (it took us ages to get there as no signposts and the track was so bad the car nearly vibrated to bits!!) then we were off another 50 or so miles up the west coast to Amed to do a spot of shipwreck snorkelling we found a lovely room on the side of the clifs affording views all across the Badung straits and were luckly enough to have a great snorkell about lunchtime before a spectcular thunderstorm set in and we had a great view! After a couple of days we went further north to Tumablem where there is a slightly newer wreck from WWII unfortunatley for us we didnt have enough time to spend the night and when we got out snorkelling the visibility was poor and there were some particularly ugly aggressive fish, being the only snorkellers there we gave up and continued on our trip, we stopped off in Sanur for just one evening and enjoyed a browse around the night market and had a look at the Hotel Darrens parents stayed in where we met them here 2 years ago! The following day we were off to the Bukit Peninsular and to Uluwatu to check out the surf, sad to say that it was still too big and tubey down at ulus for us but found a great reef break off of Panang Padang beach, we were only going to stay 1 or 2 nights but ended up extending the car hire and staying for a week! Then the time had come to meet Tomy! We felt very lucky as we are the first foreigners Tomy had taken home to meet his family and for such a special occasion was an honour! We met him in Kuta and 3 hrs later Darren had driven the scenic route to his family home in a small village close to Lovina on the north coast, we were very welcomed by his family and given tasty traditional Balinese food for lunch after a good chat we went off to find a room in Lovina. The next morning was an early start for us to meet tomy at 7.30 as this occasion is the equivalent of a Balanese christmas there was a great atmosphere in the air plenty of people scurrying around with their sunday best on and whole familys having a great time together! Upon arrival to Tomys house, his sister in law took me off to get me changed and Tomy and his brother dressed Darren, we were looking “the part” in our fab new clothes! Then it was off to the family temple, when we got there there were about 100 people inside and we were very uprised to see Tomys dad heading the service like the vicar, he gacve us the eye and we were in nestled between the whole family getting smiles from everyone I am not sure if we were the first westerners to go into this small temple but we were so warmly received it was a great experience after doing the Balanese thing saying prayers with flowers in your hands and getting blessed by Tomys aunty the service was over in little more than an hour and we got to meet a lot of people including Tomys Grandmother who I think was in her ninetys still with a great sense of humour! We were kilndly invited back to Tomys to savor some more tasty treats and saw the most amazing thing his 60 year old father climb a 20 meter coconut tree and chop off 3 coconuts for us without even breaking into a seweat! We met Tomys Cow which I called Daisy and his 2 new puppies and of course the chickens and cute little chicks, we went for a little drive shere Tomy showed us some f the best picturesque views of the region and after a great 2 days we were on the road again, we had had the car for over 2 weeks and was time to drop it back, the road back to Kuta was interesting, as the island was still in party mode, the traffic was terrible and there was another tropical storm on the go and in some places nearly a foo of water on the road!! after just an afternoon in Kuta we took a taxi back to Jackos house down by Uluwatu where we decided to spend most of the rest of our time in Bali, surfing, sunbathing and eating gourmet food, hmmmmmm.....good times had 9 days later it was time to go back to Kuta for a bit of last minute shopping and swimming in the hotel pool before the flight o Hong Kong!!!
Well Hong Kong is a great place! Full of sunshine (but not too hot!) electronics shops and Hello Kitty!!! we only had a 3 night stopover and arriving at 9pm didnt give us chance to see the symphony of lights on the first night we were starving and managed to find a busy restaurant to try some local fare, I had a fish-ball noodle soup which was tasty but far too large for me to finish and Darren had tasty pork cheeks! Yum! The next day we set off on a sightseeing bus tour which took us over onto the Island and to all the main places the camera and computer centre was a little disappointing as many of the items were the same price as what you can get for in England and kit wasn't very big at just 2 stories we then went over to “the Peak” on the tram and gained free entry to Madame Tussaud's (a complementary gift as the bus wouldn't stop for us) the views from the Peak were amazing all over the city and we had a great time before returning to Victoria Harbour and catching the Star ferry back to “the other side” (can only just pronounce let alone type!!) where we went down to the night Market for a look some interesting items to be had! The next day it was more of the same but this time off to Stanley Harbour on the bus we made a pick-nick and wandered all afternoon taking in the sights before it was back to the avenue of stars which we visited yesterday to watch the “symphony of lights” what a brilliant idea to get all the skyscrapers to flash lights and lasers in unison to some music was a real treat to see and very well orchestrated! Boom boom! The next m morning it was a 4.30 am start for our flight into Manila capital of the Philippines for our next month of exploration!!

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Photos

Sydney Harbour bridge
Slightly more grand than Poole!!!

Comments

[Jenny]

Very nice to read Ur traveling story! The incident happened in Sydney Airport was not fun, ... good that you found the right person to help out -- this is a learning for travelers too.