Blogs from Bali, Indonesia, Asia - page 264

So I just got back from (only) a week in Bali. And I can definitely say that this is really the first place that I really wish I would have had more time to explore! Bali, apparently, is the only Hindu society in South East Asia, and the temples/shrines/statues that decorated the streets (and every other possible spot that you might look) where breath taking. I spent the first few days in Kuta, and extremely overcrowded and blan spot. I should have left as soon as I got there. For this part of the trip I was travelling with a guy from Liverpool named David. Now let me tell you a little about Dave...but first, just in case david is reading this...let me say some good things. Dave is a great guy, he is damn funny, ... read more

We arrived straight into the hustle and bustle of Kuta at about 10 at night, great surfing on the beaches, Jo and I both had a go with varying degrees of success!! A couple of days later we wanted to move on to some tranquility, we decided on a really small island called Gili Air, to get there we had to travel through a larger island called Lombok...bad mistake! On the way down there, we were pickpocketed, a pair working together managed to get into our bacpack and stole my money belt....Say goodbye to my passport, 200 quid, debit cards, driving license, flight tickets etc. etc. Valentines day was spent in a Lombok police station watching the police watching television, playing on the computer and having a good laugh at the tourist who "lost" his money ... read more

Well, hello there everyone! As I am so far behind with my travelblog, I've decided to summarise the places we've visited to date. That way I'll still have some secret stories to tell when we get back too! So, here's a super-speedy whizz through Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Bali! THAILAND KOH PHI PHI 27 DEC 05 - 04 JAN 06 This was just a week of chilling out on our paradise island, and these are the main things we did: * Volunteered for HiPhiPhi- Koh Phi Phi consists of two islands (Lei and Don). Koh Phi Phi Lei is a national park and not inhabited- thought it was here that the film The Beach was, erm, filmed. Koh Phi Phi Don, however is inhabited, and was struck by the 2004 Tsunami on both sides- as the ... read more

As many of you know, Asia does have a lot of hawkers and their ability to extract money from you by either selling or offering services never ceases to amaze and also brass me off. That is until the other day at The Monkey Temple where I witnessed the most awesome piece of Balinese entrepreneurship I have ever seen. The Monkey Temple is situated on the edge of a cliff face on the southern side of Bali and is so named because of the ‘sacred’ monkeys that live there. I was warned not to leave anything dangling as the monkeys steal anything from the visitors - this was proven to be true when the Balinese guy who told me this had his cap ripped off his head and the monkey then jumped up to a point ... read more

OK, so up to press I had been surfing an awful lot, combined with eating and drinking copious amounts as well and not really getting too much into the whole traveling vibe which is what I was also here to do. This however was put to rights when I started pushing my (very mediocre) surfing ability by taking increasingly bigger waves at increasingly later take-offs, the result... one bruised ego, one battered body, and one snapped board... Oooops, time to move on ! So I’ve had the last 2 weeks traveling around Bali seeing a lot of sights and learning a lot about Balinese culture. The main thing that struck me most was what a cool religion Hinduism is (not being the religious type and am pretty open to learning about all types). As Bali is ... read more