StarGazer578

The acommodations in Brunei were a little on the pricey side for not so nice rooms, so we decided to splurge a little and stay at the Empire Hotel and Country Club. This establishment was apparently built by the sultan of Brunei in the event that royalty visited and needed a place to stay (considering the size of his palace I'm not sure why this was a concern, but anyways). Needless to say it was high class and we looked pretty damn spiffy walking in there with our backpacks. It was so lovely to have a really nice place for a change. It's not that we stay in dives, per se, it's just that the bathrooms aren't typically made of 20mm slabs of marble and have motion sensored lights. We spent the first day eating expensive ... read more

We flew from Ende to Yogyakarta on the island of Java. It took most of the day just to get there so we just found a nice place to eat, walked around our area for awhile then hit the hay. Next morning we were getting picked up at 5am to go see the famous Buddhist temple Borabodur. We arrive at around 6am when it opens and walk the path to the entrance of the temple. Adhering to Buddhist customs, we enter by the East entrance and make our way around the temple clockwise (the levels we actually get around to, that is). During our rounds we run into several groups of very nervous indonesian students who have been sent to practice their English with tourists. We humour the first few groups but politely try to run ... read more

We arrived in Denpensar at around 9pm without too much hassle, made our way to our accommodations in Kuta and had a lovely sleep. Next morning we were up and getting served free breakfast before heading up to Singaraja to stay with a friend if René's family, Esa. We decided to take the local transport which ended up working quite well and saved us about $25, and this was with buying the whole back seat for added comfort. We arrived and were welcomed into Esa's home. They had a separate suite for us with a fridge stocked with beer (they don't drink so it was a particularly kind gesture). We settled in then Esa drove us to Lovina Beach to check it out. After that we stopped at some local fruit stands where we bought some ... read more

Next morning we were on the bus at 9am for an 11h trek to Cairns. This ride was much better than the tide to Airlie Beach because a) it was 7h shorter b) the driver played movies and c) we didn't have to sleep. Sure, it took up the whole day, but when you're really tired from not sleeping all night you end up wasting a day anyways. So we arrived in Cairns at 8pm, went to our hostel and settled in for the night. Next it was off to the Cairns Tropical Zoo. This was one of the best days so far, really, I had so much fun! You felt like you were walking through a jungle with big pathways and they had shows throughout the day where you learned about the different animals. The ... read more

On the 10th we flew to Brisbane and spent some time at the outlet mall near the airport. We headed into town and checked in, bought some groceries and had a small dinner, walked around a bit then hit the hay. It was 8pm by that point so we didn't do too much exploring; we were also pretty tired and had an early bus the next day. 7:15am and we're climbing on a 5.5h bus to Rainbow Beach: our connection to Fraser Island which is the largest sand island in the world. When we got there we checked in, went to the beach and attended the mandatory Fraser Island 4WD tag along tour briefing at 4:30 (it's a tag along our because the front vehicle has a guide but the three or four other cars are ... read more