Blogs from Indonesia, Asia - page 614

It's hot. And sticky. It's also very sunny, and very cheap and the start of our big adventure! Getting to the airport was a bit hairy: we didn't pre-book our National Express tickets and had to go on stand-by to get on the coach. Luckily (!) some poor sod missed his coach so on we hopped. But in the hurry we didn't realise the girl behind the counter had sold us tickets to Heathrow, not Gatwick. We had to pay extra at Heathrow and all was fine. Our flight was loooong. We had a change in Dubai and stopped in Bangkok to let people off. When we got to Jakarta airport there was a power cut. We were plunged into pretty much absolute darkness. In true boy scout style I whipped out my torch (that Elaine ... read more

Day One After having been disappointed by Sanur's lack of cultural attractions, we ventured on to Benoa. With this tiny village, we actually discovered a cultural center within Bali's highly touristed Southern sector. When we arrived, we were immediately surprised to find a man who wanted to show us hotels in our price range. Naturally, after having met so many sales people in Bali, we assumed that he worked for one of those hotels. But he actually showed us three different ones and explained that he knew all the owners, but didn't work for any of them. We knew from our guide book that he had shown us all of the budget hotels in town and we were beginning to think that he had done so simply to be nice. We had experienced such people in ... read more

Hello Everyone, It's so nice to update our journal again. We have seen so much lately and I'm already starting to forget the details. This journal entry specifically concerns the village of Toya Bunkah. The village itself is not a place I wanted to stay in for too long, but it is also the starting off point for a sunrise trek up the Batur Volcano. The restaurant and hotel employees in this town are very nice, but the sales people are a bit aggressive. Sometimes they would even approach us in the middle of a meal to sell us their goods. We were also concerned about paying too much for the trek to the top of the volcano, because every other tourist we asked, paid a different amount. I think we came out in the middle ... read more

Next stop Bali. No bombs just peace, tranquility and free luxury accommodation for a week. We finally got to cash in on that timeshare presentation we sat through back in February. We were on Koh Samui at the time, wandering around minding our own business when we were accosted by two overly friendly Thais who wanted to make our day. We were suspicious, naturally, but let them lead us along to see what would happen. They promised free hotels, camcorders and even cash for just a few hours of our time. What happened was we ended up sitting through a presentation that lasted three hours. One in which we dutifully crunched the numbers and tried to make it work but sadly, were unable to. The upside was that because we the guys running the scam thought ... read more

Getting tired. 11 months into our grand trip, and it's taking it's toll. Sights and places that previously would have had us ooohing and aaahing now barely get a second glance. Northern Thailand, Laos and Cambodia have left us templed out. The islands and beaches of Thailand have left us beached out - and Vietnam just left us exhausted with the bartering effort of it all. So, to remedy this malais, there was only one thing to do. With a quick reworking of our itinery, we jettisoned the over developed beach resorts of Bali, and headed off to the exotic shores of Sumatra. Sumatra, like Borneo, conjures up images of a vast, remote wilderness - of exotic creatures, dangers lurking from everywhere, smoking volcanoes, and primitive tribes running around in loin cloths and blowpipes. Well, actually, ... read more