KirstyW
Kirsty and Struan Joined: September 8th 2008
Logged in: July 8th 2011
Logged in: July 8th 2011
Travel Blog Posts
The H bar
Well, the trip is pretty much over. I had a few problems with my ears on the diving course so I had to take a day's break in the middle and do it over 5 days instead. Luckily I could stay long enough to do that - so I'm now a qualified recreational diver! The first day of real diving I had a lot of trouble with my ears on the second dive - I was in agony and didn't see anything the whole dive - was even in pain for hours after we surfaced. I was really frustrated because I thought I'd have to quit the course, but the dive school are really flexible, so I just joined a different group after a day's rest. The second day of real diving went fine so I ... read more
Well, I decided to treat myself after lots of travel, so I'm now on the Gilli islands - a little slice of paradise. I'm currently on Gilli Trawangan, the "party" island - but it's Ramadan, so it's actually really nice - and kind of quiet. Just perfect really. The Gilli islands are three small islands just off the north west coast of Lombok. Gilli Meno is the quietest, with only 300 inhabitants, Gilli T is the largest, with around 1500, and Gilli Air is somewhere in between. It took a long day's travel from Kuta in Bali to get here - first a bus to Padang Bai in Bali, then a ferry to Lembur in Lombok, then a bus to Bangsal further up the coast of Lombok, and then a small boat seating about 20 people, ... read more
Borobudur - budda inside stupa
I'm currently in Yogyakarta in central Java. Most things here are closed for Ramadan which is a shame - you can pay to get into the Sultan's palace, but can actually only see the very outer courtyard which is pretty plain and a bit pointless. There are however, two fantastic temples nearby, that during Ramadan are much much quieter. The day before yesterday I went to see the most westerly of the two - Borobudur. Borobudur is the largest buddist temple in the world, and is a huge square stone temple, built of several layers. The first few layers have carved stone stories, showing aspects of life that will result in you being reincarnated as at a higher, or a lower level of life. After the story levels, and three levels with huge stupas, containing budda ... read more
Gunung Batok
Hi Everyone, 4 days without internet!!! That's some kind of record for me I think. I set off from Ubud in Bali, heading for Java. Getting the public bus from Ubud to the bus station in Denpasar to travel onwards proved very hard - I found the bus, but couldn't find out when it left, or how much it was, and since I wanted to do a lot of travel in one day, I got a taxi for the first part. After that, I got a public mini-bus from Denpasar to Gillimanuk, which is the ferry port in Bali, going to Java. The scenery and the journey was fantastic. Most people take overnight tourist buses between bali and java, and don't get to see any of that. Every scene was as amazing as the last and ... read more
I'm moving on tomorrow and probably wont have internet for a few days so I thought I'd post my plans. I've arranged a taxi tomorrow to get me to a bus station in Denpasar, and from there it will be a bus to the ferry port to Java, then get the ferry to the other side. I'm planning on staying there over night instead of doing the whole trip in one day. Apparently the scenery from the train is fantastic, and sounds much better than an overnight bus after already many hours on a bus. Also, I have a stinking cold! So it will be nice to break the journey up - and I might even treat myself to a place with HOT water!!! After the ferry, it will be a train to Probolinggo, and then ... read more
Rice paddies
Well, this will be short since the internet crashed as I typed the last one and the clock is now running out on my pre-paid card.... Yesterday, I went on a day trip up to Gunung Batur/Lake Batur and back. Gunung Batur is a volcano in north east Bali - apparently it last properly erupted in the 60s but everything I see seems to say different dates so by all accounts it seems to have a minor eruption every few years. No smoke yesterday though! We went by minibus to have breakfast overlooking the crater, and then drove back down a little way to a coffee plantation. Had a brief introduction to the coffee, but more on the fruit! After that we got on mountain bikes and cycled 24km (mostly) downhill, through villages, stopping to walk ... read more
Monkey!
I spent most of the morning wandering around the shops. I think I'll probably try and come back here for a day at the end of my trip for present shopping - I just can't carry everything round with me. After lunch I headed down to monkey forest. It's not very big, as I thought, but the trees are very dense so you can pretend your away from a town if you blank out the road noise. The monkeys are pretty tame but will steal anything they can get their hands on, and try and eat it. I got really annoyed at a girl who'd lost her water bottle to one. A guide helped get her it back but then when I pointed out she'd left the plastic wrapper on the floor and if she left ... read more
Hotel pool
I abandoned the idea of getting into Java today. I've decided to take things a bit slower. I needed to rush to try and make it to the south of Borneo and back, but I think trying to make that would make me miss half the good stuff on the way and probably not take in what I did manage to see. Instead, I took a bus up to Ubud today, which is near the centre of Bali, and the cultural centre. It's not a very big place, but full of batik paintings, wooden sculptures and masks, and pottery. There's an arts centre in town that runs lessons on all sorts of things from gamelan playing to batik painting, so I might take a class some time. I'll be here another two days at least, but ... read more
Sunset on Kuta beach
Hi everyone. I'm currently in Kuta in Bali. I arrived around 1pm, and braved flagging a taxi down on the road from the airport instead of the over priced ones in the terminal. I'm quite surprised - the taxi driver really didn't push me to stay at a place he got commission for, he just dropped me off where I asked and let me find my own place. I'm not getting anywhere near as much hassle as I expected. I get a lot of people talking to me, but it genuinely seems like people are interested in chatting as well as trying to make money, and if I don't want a tour, or a drink or sunglasses they still want to chat. Although I did have to turn one guy invitation for dinner down on 3 ... read more
