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It’s when you find yourself in a foreign country trying to recreate something that you have back at home you realize that you have really ‘travelled the world to find what you have at home’.
Christmas saw us in Bali with all the time we needed on our hands to surf and think about what we wanted to do. It also found us rather pathetically buying a fake Christmas tree, cuddling a very sweaty ‘Indo-Santa’ on Christmas Eve and generally trying to recreate some form of family Christmas ( we volunteered with charity YKPA http://www.ykpa.org/ and took some street kids surfing – a brilliant, brilliant experience and if you go to Bali we’d recommend giving this amazing charity some time).
New Year’s Eve was an absolute stunner. We danced the night away, in the rain and mud to Michael Franti’s tunes of love, peace and happiness at Panchoran Retreat in Ubud (where some of Eat. Love, Pray was filmed – if it matters! – when we were there it was all more Sing, Dance, Drink and Slide in the Mud).
But honestly? By the start of 2011 we were travelled out. And after so much time with family in the last
two months we were really realizing how precious that time and connection is.
In October we’d had to leave Australia and leave Simon and Esther behind, not easy but luckily we were on the way to meet Zoe’s parents , Jackie & Ed in Kuala Lumpur. The rendez-vous was a happy reunion with a view of the Petronas Towers. Traders Hotels was a perfect place mmm bubbly wine. We ran around the park (in the morning, not drunk or naked or anything!), enjoyed the superb breakfast and seeing some of the sights like the orchid garden which was easily trumped by the Bird Park.
Our next destination was Bali, the first visit to Indonesia for the four of us. We spend some time in Sanur, Ubud, Lovina and Double 6. These all are completely different experiences. The one common factor was the friendliness of the Balinese and their commitment to traditional customs.
Travelling with family is amazing – Jackie and Ed, having experienced Asia the year before with stops in Hong Kong and Singapore took to Bali like lovely Balinese ducks to water.
We stayed in some absolutely gorgeous villas without ever stretching above our mid-range budget. Our first stop
was Swastika Bungalows in Sanur. We were more worried about Sanur’s nickname ‘snore’ but Mum and Dad had to deal with telling everyone in the UK their first stop was Swastika Bungalows. And it was great – we loved the place and the people, most of us had massages from the lovely ladies in the spa and we generally enjoyed the gorgeous pool as the beach isn’t so amazing for swimming (but has a lovely track for evening strolls or morning runs). We took a tour to Mount Gunung Agung which showed us a whole load of the east side of the island. On the way back we took a detour to Ulu Watu temple on the cliff top for an evening performance of the Ketchak. It was in intense stormy evening, the rain held off but the clouds made for a very dramatic, beautiful evening (but it was a very packed day and we were so tired at the end – thank you for quiet Snore/Sanur!).
Then it was onto Ubud where we stayed in a classic Balinese house at D’Omah villas - beautiful, maybe a little out of town, but we liked the peace, the rice paddies and
the beautiful gardens!
Ubud was gorgeous and we enjoyed a wonderful evening at the Lotus Café with front row seats to enjoy the Balinese dancing. We also took a cooking course with Paon Bali, which came highly recommended. The class, which was run by an energetic Balinese couple, started early at the market, took us onto the rice paddies where we got to understand a bit more of Balinese culture and then onto the family complex to cook. It was a fantastic day and we learnt so much about Bali culture and food.
We’d been warned it rained more in Ubud but the torrential downpours we experienced surprised even the locals and we were a bit flooded for a while. One evening we jumped in the shakiest mini bus home to avoid the rain and ended up hiring the driver to take us to Lovina. He needed to head home which was Lovina for a funeral and rocked up the following day with his wife – on the way he stopped at the pretty Ulun Danu temple.
In Lovina we were the only people in the hotel and had a fine old time with the pool to ourselves. In fact
we went crazy most nights and played Scrabble quite intensely. The lack of tourists worked against us occasionally. At the Dolphin warung (traditional eating place) we were the only audience for the musicians which killed all conversation and meant we spend much of the meal with fixed grins, politely applauding and wishing them away. The only other customers were two small children doing there homework, oblivious to the noise.
Our trip back to the south was a lot of fun – we had a nice jolly driver and stopped at a few lovely spots. The lack of public transport on Bali does mean you can use your trips to and from different locations to tour the island and stop at ‘sights’. We stopped at Tan a Lot – a lovely touristy temple island in the south.
At our last stop in Kuta there was a little bit of stress over the accommodation. What we booked was everything we were promised – nice building, modern, comfortable….but in the middle of nowhere and quite an unpleasant hike to the beach. We made the best of it on the first night and actually had a great time on the way home – stopping
at a night market, full of fantastic eating stalls and fresh produce, which we would never have found if we had stayed on the beach.
But the next day we moved and we were installed on the beach. Dad and Eric made great friends with Josman – one of the Bali Beach boys. Much has been made of the Kuta Cowboys and the guys working on the beaches and yes of course they are there for the money (and the women) but those that aren’t so jaded, are genuine souls, over from other areas of Indonesia and trying to make a bit of money. Many of them recognized us when we returned a few weeks later from Western Australia and became great guys to hang out with.
And then Western Australia – our next stop. We were greeted by flies but once we were in our hire car we had such a great time. But those distances! Our first couple of nights were in Freemantle ‘cappucino strip’ (we had our first jetlagged, overnight-plane exhausted breakfast there– perfect!) As always when it comes to Australia- not enough time, the place is big… We then drove down to Margaret River and stayed
in a static caravan just out of town where wine tasting was forced upon us. We did some beautiful wine tours (enjoyed the Dutch links at Leeuwin and also Voyager) but Eric and Dad developed colds! It was a bit cooler than we’d expected. In a bid to try something else we discovered a Chilli wine- actually a really good wine!
The whale watching was amazing and we had one particular walk to the northern headland where we could have stood and watched the whales passing and playing, for hours.
Western Australia was a lil’ more sharky than we’d expected – a few weeks before we were there a surfer had been taken from Margaret River and a day after Dad and Eric were swimming on Cottesloe beach (a gorgeous Perth beach and a lovely not city suburb to stay in Perth) the beach was shut after a shark was stalking a school swimming lesson.
Then too quickly we had to say goodbye. It was eased somewhat by the knowledge that Mum and Dad were going on to spend time with Esther and Si, who after the engagement and Si’s accident had really experienced the highs and the lows.
We
were off back to Bali. The plan being to spend Christmas and New Year’s there before flying on back to India (via Kuala Lumpur to get our visa) for a 10 day Vipassana retreat and an exciting homestay in the Kerala backwaters. However, this wasn’t quite to work out as we planned.
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