Happy Australia day, hope everyone is enjoying themselves listening to hottest 100, at big day out or watching the cricket (for those that like that stuff...). It is our last day in Bali as we fly to Singapore tonight and then to Brisbane on a midnight special (so looking forward to that!). Since our last blog we had a chilled out second day in Kuta, got a massage, walked on the beach, watched a movie, swam in the pool and generally lounged around. Next day after a trip to the doctors we headed to Sanur to find a less busy beach [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Bali just after lunch and caught a taxi into town. We bought a mini guidebook n Jakarta and chose a hotel on the edge of Kuta that sounded pretty relaxed. It was perfect, a big room with a double bed for sleeping and a second double bed set out for lounging, an outdoor bathroom and a big verandah overlooking Balinese courtyard and swimming pool. We went for a swim straight away and then hired a motorbike and went to try to find Arnee's tattoo artist we drove up and down the streets in Legion but couldn't find it. [View Full Entry]

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After the gardens, we headed back to the villa that Rima had organised for us. Arnee and I had expected a villa might be a small mountain cottage, but this villa has five bedrooms, two lounge rooms, a dining area, swimming pool and two bathrooms. We couldn't believe it...! Earlier we had had a big lunch overlooking a great view across the mountains so we were not that hungry, we decided on a supa-mi party! The boys cooked while Rima and I eaves dropped from the lounge room to make sure they were not getting carried away (we did somehow manage [View Full Entry]

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On Monday Rima, Adee and Muhammad organised a trip to the mountians for us. We decided we should try to leave early to avoid the Jakarta traffic but when we got up we discovered that teh few hours of rain in the night had flooded the roads and neighbouring suburbs (banjir). This made meting up with Muhammad a bit tricky as he had to walk to somewhere where a car would go! Eventually we met up and set off through the flood waters toward the tollway and Puncak. We made a brief stopin the flood tog rab some sweet corn from [View Full Entry]

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On Sunday Adee and Rima organised a driver, food and gifts so that we could go to meet Ibu Lela's mum in Serang. We met with the driver at Tante Pramu and Om Pramu's house and stayed for a drink and cakes. They were both really happy to see us and to see baby Salma. We set out along the tollway and drove a couple of hours into the country. We had lunch at a fish restaurant where people were fishing in muddy ponds for their lunch. The fish was delicous (but ours was not from the pond!). We arrived at [View Full Entry]

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Sorry I skipped the Taj entry.. coming soon. [View Full Entry]

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Yeah!! We made it to Jakarta in one peice.. When we arrived at the airport we relised that we had no Indo rupee and wouldnt be able to pay for a Visa. We had to go to the customs area and ask the guy if we could find an ATM to get cash out for Visa, he said okay but hand over your passports. We also didnt know the exchange rate so I asked a lady in the shop in English and she had no idea what I was on about so I asked her in Indonesian (little that I have) [View Full Entry]

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We intented to only stay in Agra one night but the train we wanted to get on to Delhi was booked out. That was a first for us all trip. So we booked for first thing the next morning and went off to find a hotel that had a vacant room. That also turned out to be a bit of a mission. We ended up across from our favourite snack restaurant (the only restaurant that served beer). That night we organised with the chef of that restaurant to cook us breakfast (cheese tomato toasties) and we would take it on the [View Full Entry]

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After many hours at the Taj MAhal we decided it was time to grab a bit of lunch and head off to Agra Fort. We met this amazing guy selling essential oils that he makes from his own garden. He showed us a photo album of random shots of him with tourists, some magazine cut outs (seemingly unrelated) from movies and some pictures in other countries that he may have been to (when we looked more closely at the picture of the Eiffel Tower we recognised Eric Banna which twigged the movie cut outs!). The oils were actually really nice so [View Full Entry]

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The Taj Mahal, what can we say but breathtakingly amazing. The most incredible monument to one woman with 20 000 workers from around the globe working over 20 years (beggining in 1631 and completed 1653) you can imagine every detail is perfect. It is flawless, perfectly balanced, amazing. We arrived relatively early to miss the crowds and watched the Taj appear from the morning mist and smoke from the fires last night. You are not allowed to take anything but water and camera into the grounds so it is perfectly clean, though a bit noisy. The gate house is spectacular and [View Full Entry]

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