Blogs from Negara, Bali, Indonesia, Asia

Wednesday morning I woke up super super early to drive to Medewi, hoping to avoid the worst of the traffic. In doing so pretty much woke up everyone else in the hostel super early as well (sorry guys!). It was cloudy so on a whim I grabbed my rain jacket as I was finishing up my packing. I was on the road around six, having looked at a map and with a general idea of which city I wanted to head towards to pick up the main highway. I made a few lucky lucky guesses and got on the highway without actually getting lost once! Before that happened though, it started to rain. And then pour. I finally pulled over and wrapped all my electronics up in plastic and put on my hopelessly out of its ... read more

Day 11 Off to the races! This morning we met our driver at 7:00am in the hotel lobby and started on the road to Negara for the buffalo races. We were about 20 minutes driving time from the Jimbarwana Hotel, the hotel we ended up staying at. If I never saw that hotel again that would be OK with me. The rooms certainly weren’t worth what we paid and they weren’t negotiable on the rates at all. The kind gentleman behind the desk explained that the hotel is government owned and it is impossible to negotiate. On the way we saw more beautiful countryside. This was clearly a more rural village and there are few tourists. We approached the races and parked the car. I could tell right away this was going to be worth the ... read more

Zjutraj sva torej pricakali Ketuta v najinem guesthouseu, frustkajoc, ker je prisel pol ure prezgodaj. Ni panike, tako ali tako sva mu naredili biznis, za katerega je bil pripravljen cakati, in ob devetih smo sli novim dogodivscinam naproti za 400 tisoc rupij oz. 40 USD. Tudi prav. Najprej smo se ustavili v Pura Jaya Prana, kar menda pomeni tempelj lepih moskih (in naziv na Baliju ne bi mogel biti bolj na mestu). Ketut naju je vprasal, ce bi radi videli ceremonijo (ceremony - kar je tu vse v zvezi s templji), in pritrdili sva. Ampak nisva si predstavljali, da to pomeni, da bova sedli z njim pred tempelj, bili delezni zegnanja lokalnega zupnika, si nalimali riz na celo tko kot lokalci in pili neko sveto vodo! Sledil je obisk war memoriala v Cekiku, in sicer v ... read more

Hello everyone from Bali, and Singapore before that. We were hoping to blog from Singapore, but it was all a bit rushed. The flight was only 2 hours and forty minutes, our shortest yet, in the biggest plane yet a 777. Our hotel was faaaaaaaaantastic. It had a pool, the restaurant had food from everywhere in the world - I had a bit of everything, Mum and Dad ate until they felt sick. Singapore is like a future world. It has all sorts of technology, and is incredibly clean - we still think Kathmandu was very special though. Oli summed it up by saying I'm sad to leave the Courtyard Hotel, but I'm excited to be going somewhere else, and we all feel a bit like this. In Bali it is HOT and HUMID. Mum says ... read more