Paddies & Gili's of Indonesia - Part 2

One of our favorite towns on Bali was called Ubud. Besides having great shopping & food, it was surrounded by rice paddies, volcanoes, coffee farms and a monkey-filled forest. We reunited with our now 'old' friend Julie (recall trekking in Nepal) and her British friend Ciya to explore the area surrounding Ubud. We saw amazing views of the beautifully terraced rice paddies at Tegallalang village, fought off the never-ending string of pushy ladies selling tapestries (well, Julie was a bit of a sucker!), and had lunch overlooking the Batur volcano and lake. On the way back to Ubud we stopped at a very interesting "Elephant Cave" and temple nestled in the jungle.

in the sacred monkey forest

overlooking some rice paddies from Tegallalang village

Mt Batur in the distance

salt water pools at the Elephant Cave

Another must-do in Ubud is to sample the world's most expensive coffee at a local plantation. "Luwak" coffee is harvested from the excrement of a civet (see below photo), lightly roasted and crushed into grinds. It was pretty good once you got past the idea of how it was created...

Jody holding a cute little civet

Another popular evening activity in Ubud is attending a "fire and dance trance" show at one of the many temples in town. The show was a highly entertaining mix of chanting, dancing, interpretive acting and finally, coal walking. 

We spent our last afternoon with Julie & Ciya at a little organic restaurant nestled deep in the rice paddies just outside of town. We tried mango cocktails, pineapple beer, and delicious organic meals fresh from the neighboring farm.

We planned to spend our last 2.5 weeks on the three "gilis" (small islands) off the coast of Lombok island; Gili Trawangan ("Gili T"), Gili Meno and Gili Air. Gili T is the most lively of the bunch and seems to be becoming overrun with backpackers so after a couple days we moved on to the next Gili, Meno.

view of Lombok from Gili T

The only two means of transportation on the Gili's

parking lot on Gili T

Gili Meno is the "honeymooners" island i.e. the most quiet of the three, which aligned nicely with our intentions of doing absolutely nothing and disconnecting from the world. Over the course of a few days we walked around the island a few times (which takes about an hour and a half), were able to snorkel right off the beach out our front door and did a lot of reading & eating.

Gili Air in the distance

our bungalow on Gili Meno

view from the bungalow

an incredible fish we spotted snorkeling at Gili Meno

Gili Air was our favorite of the three; it offered the perfect mix of liveliness and peacefulness. We found an awesome 'resort' where for $30/night we had a brand new air-conditioned bungalow, buffet Indonesian + Western-style breakfast and a refreshing fresh-water pool right next to the ocean (fresh water was a luxury on the gili's, including showers). It was pure bliss and we soaked it up.

our nightly dinner spot on Gili Air

view from the breakfast hut

sunset over Lombok

We spent our last few days in Indonesia back in Ubud at one of our favorite hostels of the trip. We picked up some last minute gifts, visited the market and got to know some new friends over delicious evening meals.

our balcony in Ubud

leaving Indonesia

We took a sunrise flight out of Bali to Singapore where we were in for a LONG journey by land back to Bangkok for Christmas...

Volcanoes & Beaches of Indonesia - Part 1

We spent a month in Indonesia and feel like we barely scratched the surface of all there is to see & experience, though what we did see made it one of our top spots in Southeast Asia! We flew into Yogyakarta on Java island where we did a day trip to visit two incredible old temples - Borobudur, the largest Buddhist monument in the world & Prambanan, one of the largest Hindu temples in SE Asia.

The view atop Borobudur; each bell-shape stupa houses a Buddha statue

so fashionable in our mandatory sarongs

one of the intricate temples at Prambanan

Prambanan

After the temples we stopped to see Mount Merapi (aka Fire Mountain), the most active volcano in Indonesia erupting most recently in October 2010. It was mostly hidden by clouds but it was amazing to see the lava-carved landscape in the surrounding area where villages continue to be re-built after every devastation.

After a few days hanging out in and exploring Yogyakarta we headed east on Java to see smoking Bromo volcano at sunrise; what a sight! We were awaken at 3am for a quick breakfast, jeep ride and hike up to the viewpoint on Mount Penanjakan looking out over the 'sea of sand' in the Tengger Caldera. Afterward we were able to walk up to the crater of Bromo and see deep inside this volcano which had erupted less than 2 years prior.

pretty chilly at sunrise

a bit cloudy but there are 5 volcanoes in there!

the landscape is almost other-worldly

walking across the Tengger Sand Sea to reach Bromo Volcano

locals offer horse rides up to the base of Bromo volcano

looking into Bromo volcano from the edge of the crater

Mount Batok

From the volcanoes of Java we headed to the beaches of Bali to live out the end of our trip in complete relaxation mode. We bolted out of Aussie-overrun Kuta as soon as we could and spent a few days in Sanur at our $18/night double-decker, pool-side bungalow! We had a few laughs and great meals with a lovely British couple we'd met on Java who we later followed to our next destination, Nusa Lembongan off the southeast coast of Bali.

the beach at Sanur

We rented bikes on Lembongan island and checked out all of the colourful seaweed harvest sites, beaches and mangroves. Once we were sufficiently drenched in sweat we dove into the wonderfully refreshing pool at our guesthouse and continued to swim when the daily hour of rain hit in the late afternoon.

 

 

 In Part 2 of the Indonesia blog we head back to Bali then visit the three Gili's; stay tuned!

Two days in Singapore

What an amazing place! We only had a short amount of time to spend here so we made the most of both days exploring this interesting (and expensive!) city by foot & train. Our home base was in Little India from where we could get anywhere in the city quickly & easily by 'mass rapid transit' or the MRT. Our first stop was the promenade along Marina Bay where we were greeted by an incredible show of lights and a bright waterworks show over the water. We checked out the impressive Christmas decorations in the fancy 'Shoppes of Marina Bay Sands' mall then somehow found our way up to the rooftop of the Marina Bay Sands hotel (the spaceship-looking building below) where we were able to see the incredible nighttime view of the city lights.

 

We spent an afternoon walking around the "Gardens on the Bay" and enjoyed a tasty meal in the park.

 

Clarke Quay was a great place for an evening stroll, drink & dinner - though we could only afford the strolling part! We found there were so many great spots like this scattered around the city it would take at least a week to take it all in, which we plan to do someday when we're not on a backpackers' budget..

The Singapore Zoo is meant to be one of the best in the world but I think we're becoming zoo snobs after having seen so many animals in the wild this year. It was still pretty cool to see the naturalistic, open exhibits & free ranging orangutans as well as many of the animals during feeding time.

another family photo!

We walked and walked and walked, taking in as much as we could in our two day visit and really enjoyed this vibrant, modern city/country. We picked up on a few of Singapore's strange laws while we were there such as: selling chewing gum is illegal, you can be fined for not flushing a public toilet and logging onto an unsecured wireless connection is considered hacking.