Toronto, Canada

We've been back home now for almost a week. I thought I was over the jetlag, but we were both up at 4am this morning.

Here's the best pics from the trip. My favourite is the woman sifting rice.

Indonesia - favourites

I was able to get the pics from one of the damaged SD cards, simply by plugging it into my Mac. The other one is still corrupted -- however, I did previously offload the best pics, so I'm not too concerned. There seems to be plenty of freeware that may fix the problem, I just haven't had a chance to try yet.

All of our souvenirs made it back in one piece, with no overweight charges. The staff at Cathay Pacific were great -- they gave us packaging for the rolled-up paintings, stuck a "Fragile" sticker on it, and then actually treated it as fragile.

The flights back were uneventful. Thank goodness for video-on-demand in airplanes -- it helps the hours go by.

The highlights of the trip included the hike to see the turquoise waters of Kawah Ijen, and relaxing on Nusa Lembongan for a couple days. Borobudur was cool to see, but not in the same league as Angkor Wat or Machu Picchu.

This trip was a bit different in that we rarely used public transportation. It was about the same cost (and much more convenient and comfortable) to get private transportation for the two of us.

As well, (and strangely for 4th most populated country in the world), we didn't spend a lot of time in large urban centres. We passed through Jakarta because our flight took us there; and we spent a couple jetlagged days in Yogyakarta, but that was it. I didn't realize I missed cities until we were waiting to fly home, looking out from our hotel room balcony at the downtown skyline of Jakarta.

Next trip is most likely to Peru (to see Machu Picchu) and Argentina (through the wine region around Mendoza). Machu Picchu is the most impressive site I've seen in the world. Heather's never been and I'd like to see it again (I did the Inca Trail in 1994).

Jakarta, Indonesia

We're back in Jakarta at the end of our little trip. We've been watching BBC News in the hotel rooms, with all the stuff going on in Mumbai and Bangkok. Fortunately we're not flying through those countries on our way home. (Although I read that the Indian Presdient is currently in Bali and flies to Jakarta on Sunday, but we'll have departed for Hong Kong by then).

The fish market in Jimbaran was very romantic. There's rows of restaurants along the beach, all with candle-lit tables set up on the sand, stretching hundreds of metres. We pointed out the fishies we wanted (in our case, crab and squid), which is then cooked as requested and served on the beach. The food was good, but it's more the ambience that's the draw. We were lucky that it was a rain-free evening, one of the few we've had.

The next day we had a day-trip to Kuta, about a 25 minute taxi ride to the west side of the peninsula. Kuta is the party town which was bombed in 2002. It's much more touristy than Sanur. We walked along the wide beach, and then stopped in at a restaurant for some Bintangs. We were feeling a bit grubby to stay for dinner so headed back to our hotel.

We had a morning flight back to Jakarta which went very smoothly. We were fortunate to see Gunung Bromo on the flight -- we were both napping on the almost two hour flight, and I happened to wake up and look out the window just as we flew over. I took a few pictures. (I don't want to risk another USB card so I'll just upload the rest of my pics when I'm back in Toronto).

We checked into the same hotel in Jakarta that we stayed on at the start of our trip. Last night we ate at a fancy restaurant (Lara Djonggrang) near the hotel. We had made reservations earlier in the afternoon, and when we came for dinner, a cute little "Erick - Mr." sign written on a leaf held our table for us. I didn't have my camera with me so we took the leaf back to take a pic. We ordered something different -- I tried the eel, and Heather soft-shell crab. They were both heavily breaded and not so much to our liking. But the food was really well presented in large sea shells and the restaurant was like an art gallery or museum, with large art pieces all around.

Today we walked to the main square. Jakarta (and most of Java and Bali for that matter) is not really pedestrian-focused. We were the only pedestrians on the sidewalks (where they existed). Dropped into the National Museum. Heather's back was feeling a bit sore so we just took a taxi back (what with the long flights tomorrow).

We bought a large suitcase in Bali to help fit all the souvenirs we've purchased. The bulkiest (and heaviest) is a life-sized stone Buddha head. It's about 20kg. Our two pieces of luggage total 51kg, and we have some large oil-on-canvas paintings rolled up. We were okay on the domestic flight (both with the weight, and taking the paintings as carry-on). I'm not sure we'll be as lucky on the international flights, but we'll see.

See you all soon!

Sanur, Indonesia

We're back in Sanur after a couple nights on the island of Nusa Lembongan.

We stayed at Waka Nusa Resort which was our splurge on this trip. Our room was a round thatch-roofed bungalow, creatively decorated (and a full mosquito net). The grounds were impeccable, with all the beach sports available. (We played a short game of bocce ball (which was interrupted for complimentary tea and cakes - it was almost like cricket), and some pingpong).

The resort was on Mushroom Bay, which is a nice secluded little beach. It's small enough that there's only about eight hotels (each hotel having maybe ten rooms) lined end-to-end over the whole beach, but large enough that it had a couple restaurants (to provide variety from the resort). In busy season we were told that you need to book at least a month in advance! We booked the day before. There's nice views across the water of Bali (nicer in dry season :) ) & Gunung Agung (the tallest peak in Bali), a cool ocean breeze and not so many tourists.

Yesterday I went diving with Lembongan Dive, arranged through the hotel. It was pretty cheap (only $30 / tank!). Heather joined along and went snorkelling while I dived. I dived at a couple sites, SD and Lembongan Point. Both were fast drift dives, which I'm relatively inexperienced at (previously I've only done drift dives when I did my Advanced Open Water). It was pretty cool. My previous dive was three years ago, so it took me my first dive to get my feet wet (pun intended), and on the 2nd dive I was able to look around at the coral and fishies. The water was only 24C so we wore a full wet suit and boots. Didn't see any manta rays or sunfish.

In the afternoon Heather and I walked about 15 minutes from our hotel through the island to Dream Beach. It was like a beach in a movie scene. Most of the time we had the beach to ourselves (technically we were in the restaurant overlooking the beach). It reminded Heather of PEI, except for the colour of the sand. We had lunch and a couple Bintangs, and then walked back to our hotel.

We had dinner at Winda Sari Warung, right beside our hotel. We both had grilled squid, which was really good, and shared a banana crepe with palm syrup and cocoa shavings, the best dessert we've had so far. I've been having grilled squid at every occasion on ocean-side towns, trying to find a place as good as the place in Zanzibar. So far at places here it's been really good to great.

This morning we had plans to wake up at 6am to see the fisherman come in; but at 6am those plans didn't seem like a great idea. So we slept in till 8am. Had breakfast, read a bit, caught the ferry back to Sanur, checked back into Tamukami Hotel. Most likely we'll be staying here until Friday when we fly back to Jakarta, although if we get bored we may spend a night in Kuta. Tonight we're going to eat at the fish market in Jimbaran. There's rows of places serving fresh fish with garlic, lime and chili marinade, grilled over coconut husks. I'm hungry already just thinking about it. It's about 15km from Sanur on the west side of Bali, so if it wasn't rainy season we'd also get a nice sunset. We've arranged for a driver to take us there and back for about $10 -- not sure if that's the going rate but it seemed good to us.

Sanur, Indonesia

We're finally in a beach town in Bali, after five days in Ubud.

Yesterday we had a day trip through some of the sites north of Ubud. We hired a driver, and visited Tampaksiring, Penelokan and Sukowati. This is a very common thing to do, and the day was filled with tourist traps, although still worth it.

Tampaksiring contains both Tirta Empul (holy springs) and Gunung Kawi (10 rock-cut shrines). We only wanted to see Gunung Kawi, but our driver first dropped us at Tirta Empul. We spent about 10 minutes wandering around Tirta Empul, asking for Gunung Kawi, before we realized we were in the wrong spot.

Gunung Kawi is quite cool. We descended around 350 steps down from the parking lot to the river valley. The path at one point is cut through solid rock. At the bottom are 10 shrines, about 7m tall, also cut from solid rock. There were no other tourists there when we arrived, which was nice.

Next was Penelokan for a view of Lake Batur, between the two peaks of Gunung Batur and Gunung Agung. It was okay, not any more spectacular than any lake back home.

We skipped Pura Besakih, a very big tourist trap according the Lonely Planet, and instead went shopping around Sukawati.

There are a million shops around Sukawati, all selling rather high-quality crafts from wood and stone, and oil-on-canvas paintings. We bought five paintings, the largest 1m x 2m, plus some other crafts. It was a busy day of bargaining.

We arrived back at the hotel around 5pm and cleaned up, and then headed to our favourite restaurant (Sura's Warung) for dinner. (Oh yah, the duck last night was excellent, very tender and rich).

This morning we shopped for more souvenirs at the local market in Ubud; and then took a private transport to Sanur. We're staying at the Tamukami Hotel, another nice boutique hotel (it's not in the LP -- Heather found on the web). We've been waiting to get back ocean-side for some seafood; and found a place for lunch (Made's Pub) near the hotel that had very good grilled squid (mmm yummy).

Tomorrow we take a sailboat across the Selat Badung to stay for a couple nights on Nusa Lembongan (Nusa means island); the island is supposed to be relatively untouched but maybe by now they'll have internet access. I'm planning to go for a dive, and relax on Mushroom Bay beach with Heather.

I forgot to bring my SDcard-to-USB thingy so I'll upload some more pics next time. Unfortunately I had some more problems trying to eject my SD card the other day in Ubud (stupid Windows again wouldn't let go of it), so now I'm carrying around two corrupted SD cards. I'm hoping there's a place back home that will be able to restore the pics for me.

Sanur, Indonesia

Today we arrived in Sanur from Ubud. We spent the last 5 days or so in Ubud, so we were ready for a change of scenery. Our time in Ubud was very relaxing. I took in a few different treatments at the health spa down the street from our hotel (deep tissue massage, facial, and, just out of curiosity, an assessment with a elder spiritual healer from the community). The latter didn't really offer much insight to me, but the session was very interesting, nonetheless.

Ubud was a very tranquil town - once you managed to get away from the major tourist centre of Monkey Forest Rd, that is. Luckily, we were staying in a hotel off the main drag, so we were quite fortunate not to have to contend with the constant barrage (kind of a cross between Cavendish in the summer in PEI and the Beach in Toronto on the weekend). Our hotel was quite peaceful, and was very much Balinese in architecture and design. The room was basic, but the exterior was quite lovely, especially for breakfast. We found a neat little restaurant up the road (close to my spa), so spent a few days enjoying the food, street traffic, and surroundings that the restaurant had to offer.

Yesterday, Eric and I hired a driver for the day to take us to some of the surrounding areas around Ubud. We saw the highest peak on Bali (Gunung Agung (3142m)) and a couple of Hindu temples along the way. Eric was able to stop at a number of rice fields to take some pics - a few excellent ones, I might add, which I'm sure he'll soon post.

To finish the day, we stopped at a village called Sukowati to shop for artwork. There is a large, bustling bazaar in the centre of the town. We were on the hunt for abstract art, and our visit did not disappoint :) Ubud (and its surrounding environs) has a high concentration of very talented artists (painters, wood carvers, stone carvers, musicians, and so on). We were so impressed with what we were seeing in town that Eric and I decided we wanted to buy a few pieces at the market - if we could find, and, most importantly, agree on something to buy. In the end, we purchased 2 large pieces at the Sukowati market, and a couple of others back in the Ubud local market when we arrived home that evening. All were very reasonably priced, so we were very happy with the day's outcome!

Right now, we're in Sanur, a beachfront town in the south of Bali. We'll spend tonight here, and then we'll take a boat of some sort over to a small island off Bali called Nusa Lembongan for a bit of diving and snorkeling for a couple of days. It's supposedly very tranquil here, so it'll be nice to relax by the ocean.
Our hotel on this island is a bit of a 'splurge' hotel for the trip (comparatively speaking, compared to the relative affordability of the rest of Indonesia), so it'll be nice to be close to the water again for a few days. After this jaunt, we'll return to Sanur for a couple of days, and then fly out to Jakarta.

Now that we're on the coast again, we're really looking forward to indulging in seafood!!! We're been holding off ordering it on the menu when we've been more inland on the trip...but, now that we're on the water, we can enjoy!

Overall, we're having a great time. Bali has been very relaxing, and we're looking forward to checking out more of the island.

Ubud, Indonesia

We've spent the past few days relaxing in Ubud. Despite all the tourists, the town has maintained its authenticity once you get off the main streets. There's a very nice spa at the end of our street at which we've had almost daily appointments. When you get a massage, there's sounds of a bumbling stream, gentle raindrops in leaves, birds chirping... Except it's not a CD playing -- these are real sounds you hear in the massage rooms which are open on one side to the natural surroundings.

Yesterday we went for a walk along a ridge between two rivers, with views of rice terraces cut into the hillsides. Back in town, we had lunch in a small little cafe on our street. It started raining after we ate, so we decided to have a beer and wait out the rain. Fortunately it's rainy season and the rain continued for a few hours. "A beer" turned into many. There was a break in the rain later in the afternoon, which gave us enough time to get to another little cafe and have a beer. Later we had dinner at Cafe Lotus, a restaurant on the grounds of Pura Taman Saraswati, one of the major temples in Ubud.

This morning I took a Balinese cooking class at Casa Luna. It was more of a cooking show; but still worth the time. Unlike cooking classes I've taken in other countries, the instructor did most of the cooking while we watched. I did get to grind spices into a paste, and chop up some eggplant, but that was it. I also got a nice souvenir apron, and a recipe book. The recipe book gives good descriptions of the ingredients used in Balinese cooking, as well as suggesting alternatives.

Tonight we're having bebek betutu. It's a balinese specialty of duck stuffed with spices, wrapped in banana leaves and coconut husks and cooked in embers all day. You have to order 24 hours in advance -- yesterday's lunch was really tasty so we booked it at that same restaurant.

Tomorrow we've arranged for a driver to take us to some of the sights in northern and eastern Ubud. The last stop is the craft market at Sukawati, where we'll load up on souvenirs.

Ubud, Indonesia

We're now in Bali, after seeing some beautiful natural wonders in east Java.

We ended up keeping our driver for three days, seeing Gunung Bromo, staying on a coffee plantation, doing the Kawah Ijen hike, and finally getting dropped off in Ubud, Bali. There were quite a few other couples who we bumped into along the trip that were doing similar itineraries, also with a hired car and driver.

First was a long eleven hour drive from Yogyakarta to Cemoro Lawang, a town on the edge of the ancient Tengger caldera. Inside the 10km crater are three volcanoes, including Gunung Bromo (2392m).

We woke up at 3:15am to get to a viewpoint well above Tengger. We arrived just before the break of dawn, and found maybe 300 other tourists (half Indonesian, half foreigners) also at the viewpoint. It was a cloudy morning, and we waited for an hour to see if the clouds would break. We jostled with the other tourists for photo ops. There were occasional great views of Gunung Semeru (3676m) in the background, which spewed up dark clouds of smoke every few minutes. We did manage to get a big picture view through the clouds, but nothing picture-worthy.

Next we drove down a very steep (45*) "road" to the foot of Bromo. The enterprising locals have set up a fence about 500m from the base; and offer horse rides across the short distance. We chose to walk :)

Due to the altitude, it was a tiring climb up 253 stairs to get to the rim of Bromo. The smell of sulphur didn't help. About half way up, we sat down on some rocks to rest. We were soon surrounded by teenage kids wanting to take my picture. I felt I had to uphold the reputation of my doppelganger, the Bollywood star, so posed for a few pics, signed an autograph etc. We resumed our climb after a few minutes. Once at the top, there were great views into the crater, with smoke billowing out. Very smelly, though.

Back at the hotel we had breakfast (it was only 7:30am!) and then settled in for the drive to the Ijen Plateau. About six hours later we arrived at Catimore Homestay on the Balawan coffee plantation. It was a great setting, in a big old Dutch house. We relaxed, had some tea by the garden, and read a bit. Later in the evening we had dinner and a couple beers, and then went to bed around 9pm.

We were up early yet again to visit the coffee factory at 6am. There was a noisy room where dozens of women graded the coffee beans, tossing them into the air with large trays. We also saw a large heated warehouse where the beans are dried. It was pretty cool. I had no idea what a coffee plant even looked like before this trip.

I had to have coffee with breakfast on the plantation (I'm more of a tea drinker). It was excellent. If there was coffee like this in Toronto, I may even become a coffee drinker.

It was a short 30-minute drive from the plantation to Kawah Ijen, which is a beautiful turquoise lake. Sulphur is collected inside the crater by workers who carry 80kg loads along a difficult trek. It was tiring for us and we weren't carrying anything. The path is 3km up the crater, pretty steep for parts; and the smell of sulphur was overpowering towards the crater rim. We stepped aside every few minutes to allow the sulphur collectors to pass going downhill with their loads. Along the path were loads of sulphur waiting to be carried; the yellow sulphur made a nice subject for pics.

We finally reached the lookout point on the rim of the crater. The smoke from the crater obscured views of the turquoise lake and so we waited, breathing through our clothing, hoping for the wind to shift the smoke and give us a view. After about 20 minutes, we were rewarded with a partial view. We started trekking back, and just before we left the rim, the smoke cleared completely! Another 10 seconds and we would been downhill and missed the view. It was gorgeous and well worth the journey. It's off the beaten path, and the lack of tourists was nice compared to Bromo.



We trekked back to our vehicle, and were off to Bali. It was a short one hour drive to the ferry, about an hour across to Bali, and then a four hour drive to Ubud, in the middle of Bali. We said goodbye to Eko (sp?), who had been our excellent driver and guide over the last four days, and checked into the Pradha Guesthouse.

The Pradha Guesthouse is in a beautiful Balinese setting. There grounds are enormous, with intricate carved pillars and roofs, ponds, lots of seating, and a view into the Pura Desa Ubud temple next door. Last night we were pretty tired from the past couple days of travel; and we also had a bit of culture shock with so many tourists (it's like in the movie The Beach when they come back to the partying on the mainland). However, our guesthouse is a bit off the main drag, and there's many walks through rice paddy fields that start from our front door. We'll be relaxing here in Ubud for the next few days, doing walks, maybe hiring a driver for a day trip to surrounding sights, buying souvenirs, (and getting back to a civilized sleep schedule!)

Ubud, Indonesia

After a few exhausting days, we finally arrived on the island of Bali late yesterday afternoon (with a 1-hr time change from Java - so, now it's a 13-hr time difference for us...not that it really makes much of a difference at this point :))

(Eric and I are both typing our posts at the same time, so there may be a slight bit of overlap).

Over the past few days, we've been in a very mountainous region of Java province (north/central). We hired the same driver (Eko) to take us to the last few spots: Mount Bromo, to see a couple of active volcanoes in the region; and, Kawah Ijen (Ijen Crater), to see a turquoise lake located inside a volcano. The latter was situated in a heavily forested area, so the roads were VERY rugged. Luckily, it wasn't raining, so we were able to drive up the mountain.

I really liked Bromo and Ijen. At Bromo, we woke up around 3.30am to get to a wonderful look-out point to catch a view of 3 rather large volcanoes. They are still active, so when the clouds cleared, and the sun rose, we were actually able to see the smoke and ash billowing out (no lava, though). From here, we drove to Mount Bromo (one of the mountains) to hike to the rim of the volcano. This was an interesting climb. Unfortunately, there were quite a few tourists here and at the lookout, but that was okay. We are traveling in the "low season" in Indonesia (and at the beginning of rainy season), so I can't imagine what "high season" numbers must be like!! Java is the most heavily populated island of Indonesia, with over 120 million people alone.

After Mount Bromo and region, we traveled to the Ijen Plateau area of Java (central/east). This was about a 6-hr drive from Bromo. Ijen is full of coffee plantations, and the hotel we stayed actually bordered on one. We had the chance to tour the plantation yesterday morning, which was very cool. So, needless to say, the coffee for our breakfast that morning was awesome! The accomodations were a bit rough (I kind of felt like we were sleeping outdoors with the animals and insects rather than indoors!), but it was worth it given the scenery and proximity to the Ijen Crater and Bromo. Next time, we're packing a mosquito net (we're in a part of Indonesia where malaria isn't a real threat, so we didn't bring one with us).

Once we left our hotel, we headed for the Kawah Ijen. It was about a 1.5 hr trek up the mountain (probably about 5-6 kms in total). It was incredible! Luckily, the clouds broke a few times at the peak (around the crater rim) so we could view the surreal turquoise lake and sulfur mine. The fumes from the sulfur pit were, at times, overwhelming, tho. At this altitude, breathing was a bit difficult with the fumes. Eric will likely post some pics of the sulfur and the miners. It was well worth the journey!

After Ijen, we headed for Bali. We'll likely spend the next few days in the town of Ubud (according to the Lonely Planet, it's the cultural apex of Bali). The rice fields surrounding the town look amazing! Our hotel is close to the centre of town, so it's convenient for doing walking tours around the town. The hotel is very Balinese in architecture and in furnishings. It'll be relaxing to hang out here for a few days. So far, our trip has been quite active, so both Eric and I feel that we haven't had a chance to get caught up on our rest or relaxation yet (as a lot of mornings have been 3am or 4am starts). Today, we'll likely do a bit of reading by the pool, maybe walk down to a local market and buy some fruit, and rest my back...it's a little tired after all the mountain hiking!

Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Today we saw the Hindu temples around the Prambanan plain. We had hired a private car and driver for the day to get to all the ruins, and it was well worth the $22.

We were up at 5am, our internal clocks still a bit messed up. Breakfast at the Ministry of Coffee didn't start until 8am, but we couldn't fall back asleep so just stayed up. Breakfast was great, the best on the trip so far (although still short of breakfasts we had in Morocco). Our driver arrived at 9am and we started our day.

First we stopped at Candi Sambisari (Candi translates as temple), about 10km outside of town. This is a ruin 6m below ground level that was discovered by a farmer. It now sits fully uncovered, surrounded by farms in the village. We didn't even see until we were right upon it. I went to take a pic and realized that my memory card was corrupted, most likely when I uploaded pics yesterday (stupid Windows). So we were now on a SD card hunt as well as ruins.

Next we saw Candi Kalasan and Candi Sari. These are also in the middle of farms and villages, which continue on with life as if nothing's extraordinary about a temple sitting next to your house. There were no other tourists at any of these ruins.

Before getting to the Prambanan complex we headed to a market and found a camera store, and picked up a 1GB card for $12. Yippee!

Just east of the main complex is the Plaosan group of temples. This was our favourite site, (maybe even better than Borobudur). Again, it's set surrounded by farmer's fields. Most of the site is an archaeological work in progress, with big mounds of rocks waiting to be arranged into temples and shrines and stupas. Two of the main temples are restored; the rest just a jumble. It was quite beautiful and peaceful.

Finally we headed to the Prambanan complex. Most of the temples (the highest reaching 47m) were damaged by the earthquake in 2006; and so access is very restricted. However they're still amazing to see.

We had a quick stop at Kraton Ratu Boko, primarily to see Prambanan from a lookout spot in the hills surrounding the plain. You need a pretty good zoom to get a decent pic -- my five-year-old camera with a 3x zoom just didn't cut it. Boko also has some basic ruins to see, which we glanced at.



...

A couple days ago while I was about town, I was stopped by a few groups of girls so they could take their picture with me. Heather and I figure I must look like some Bollywood star or the other.

...

We're now finished with ruins for the trip. Next up are a couple of natural wonders: Gunung Bromo volcano and Kawah Ijen (a turquoise sulphur lake). We've booked the same driver to take us for the next two days. The driver was great, and the car has good lower lumbar support (it's a couple of long days in the car for Heather's back). After that we're off to Bali for the remainder of the trip.

Yogyakarta, Indonesia

So we saw Borobudur today! It is a very impressive ruin; it's amongst my top-five favourite ruins in the world. First on my list is Machu Picchu; followed by Angkor Wat and Tikal; and then Palenque and Borobudur.

We left yesterday around noon from our hotel in Yogyakarta. We took a private car & driver to the ruins, ($20 for the 90 minute drive). I had reserved a room at the only hotel on the grounds, Hotel Manohara. The service was excellent -- when we arrived, we were served javanese tea and a snack, and then showed to our room. Hotel guests get unlimited access to Borobudur; so we headed over (about a five minute walk). We walked around the ruin(clockwise, as is the Bhuddist custom), and then up to the top. It was later in the day but still pretty hot (30C+), so we didn't stay long.

Back at the hotel, we figured on a nice dinner at the outdoor hotel restaurant which overlooks the ruins. We ordered a large beer to share and settled in for dusk. Unfortunately we forgot that open air + rainy season + dusk = mosquitoes and bugs. (We didn't actually forget, as we had brought bug spray, but didn't think about it when we were thinking of a nice dinner). Being city folk we didn't much care for the bugs, so quickly ate and retired to our room for the night.

We had to be up at 4:00am to catch the sunrise from the top of Borobudur. Our internal clocks are still messed up, so getting up early wasn't a problem (we had fallen asleep at 7pm). Sunrise access is only available to hotel guests (the main reason I wanted to stay at Manohara) (for an extra $11). The "Sunrise Tour" ticket is a nice souvenir; we also received complementary flashlights :)

There were less than 15 of us on the sunrise tour, which was nice as the ruins are more mysterious when there aren't hundreds of other tourists. We all settled in at various vantage points at the top to watch the sunrise. It's hazy this time of year, so we didn't get the colours of a sunrise, but it was beautiful with the mist and haze. The mist was slowly burnt away by the sun, finally exposing the countryside. Busloads of tourist arrived shortly after 6am which broke the spell. I spent a couple hours taking pictures, and then Heather and I headed back to the hotel for breakfast.



After breakfast, we went back to our room and took an unplanned two-hour nap. Woke up and went to see a video in the "audio-visual room". The video was filmed in the 70s, but did a great job of explaining some of the bas-reliefs that surround the first few layers of Borobudur.

Around noon we took a private car back to Yogyakarta, and checked into the Ministry of Coffee (I had reserved the room prior to going to Borobudur). It's one of the nicest hotels I've stayed at while traveling.

We had lunch at our favourite restaurant (Deja Vu), then ran some errands (dropped off laundry, booked the trip to Prambanan for tomorrow, picked up our plane tickets from Denpasar to Jakarta, bought some water).

Tomorrow we're off to see Prambanan, which is a complex of Hindu temples (Borobudur is Bhuddist) (both built around 1200 years ago). We've once again booked a private car & driver ($25 for five hours).

Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Just a quick post, as Eric has run out to the local market to see what he can pick up to aid in the recovery of my lower back spasm from yesterday. I think the hot, humid heat of Java is the best medicine. It's already morning, and I'm very mobile compared to previous times my back has "gone out" on me. I actually just finished a series of stretches by the pool, and am able to do almost all of the "normal" exercises assigned by my chiropractor and physiotherapist -- so I'm overjoyed, to say the least :) (usually it takes 2-3 days to get this point). I've been so impressed with how the locals have accommodated my back problem...they've really, really gone out of their way to help me.

As Eric mentioned, today we're heading to Borobudur (one of the major reasons why we picked Indonesia for our trip). Eric's a huge ancient ruin fanatic, so I'm sure it will be an impressive sight! Then, we'll likely head back to Yogya (as the city here is commonly known) and plan a day trip to see another ancient ruin (a large Hindu temple about 30 mins from here called Prambanan (sp?)).

Yogyakarta, Indonesia

We've been in Indonesia for a little over two days, but it seems much longer with the jetlag.

Heather's back survived the 24 hours from Toronto to Djakarta, and then the eight hour train ride to Yogjakarta. Heather's chiropractor had given her stretches for her back and hip, and so every couple hours she got up and stretched on the plane and train. Every time she did so, it prompted a number of older asian folks to get up and start doing their own stretches.

Yesterday was our first real day of travel, and after being cooped up in trains and planes and becaks, we set out to see Yogyakarta. (Becaks is the local term for a three-wheeled pedal-powered transport. The driver sits on a raised seat at the back, and you're in the front zipping and cutting through motorbikes, scooters, bikes and cars.) I think we both let our guard down about Heather's back (figuring the flight was the hardest part), and overdid it on Tuesday morning.

We spent the rest of the day in the hotel, allowing her back to recover. Heather wasn't too mobile, so I asked the restaurant next door for take out (we ate there on Monday night). Instead, they delivered the food right to our room in the hotel! I took back the plates after we ate.

Heather's feeling much better today. We have a reservation at the only hotel in Borobudur for tonight, which we'll be heading to later this afternoon. Tomorrow hopefully we'll be seeing Borobudur!

Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Just a quick post to say we arrived here in one piece. The flights went by surprisingly quick. The food on the 2nd flight (the Cathay Pacific one) was really good.

We arrived in Djakarta around 8pm. It was straightforward to get through immigration and customs. The visa is really nice-looking -- a full page sticker. Took a taxi to the Marco Polo hotel, which I had reserved earlier from home. We had a bite to eat, and then fell fast asleep.

Five hours later we were wide awake (it's a 12 hour time difference from Toronto), so we decided to get the train to Yogyakarta today. There's not much to see in Djakarta, and we'll have a day to sightsee on the way home.

It was very easy to purchase a ticket for the executive class train to Yogyakarta (about $23 each for the eight hour trip). We tried to book into the Lonely Planet recommended "Ministy of Coffee". It was full, but they suggested a nice boutique hotel (Duta Guest House) just down the street which we are now staying at for a couple nights.

Tomorrow we'll tourist around (there's plenty to see here). It's the start of rainy season, but it looks like it just rains before sunset for an hour or so.

I haven't taken any pictures yet (we're still getting situated after the journey). Anyways were off to have some large Bintang beers (and dinner later on).

Toronto, Canada

Eric has signed me on as a blog contributor, so I'll be posting here periodically on the trip (...I think he was getting a little tired of me saying, "Eric, don't forget to post this, that, and the other thing")

We're really looking forward to our trip to Indonesia. The trip was kind of "up in the air" with my lower back trouble over the past couple of months, but I'm officially on the mend - haven't had a lower back spasm in over 2 weeks and have been feeling great!

We arrive in Jakarta late Sunday night, so we'll likely post again early next week.

Toronto, Canada

We're getting excited about the trip! We leave Saturday morning -- fifteen hours to Hong Kong, a two hour layover, and then five hours to Jakarta. We're flying Cathay Pacific, which I've heard good things about.

The Indonesian government has said they'll be executing the Bali bombers around the middle of November, unfortunately also in the middle of our trip. It's a big story in the local media. We'll be careful as usual, but don't think it's any more risk than Leslieville lately. See comments on the Lonely Planet travel forum.

In our three weeks we're planning to see Borobudur (the last major ruins on my list), dive in Bali, and maybe see the Komodo dragons and Kelimutu. For those keeping count (Gerry), Indonesia will be country number 61 in my lifelong quest to travel to 100 countries.

Toronto, Canada

We arrived back in Toronto a couple days ago and have started to get back into life over here.

I took 951 pictures over the four weeks. I've posted some of them on Picasa in three albums. Click on the pictures below to see the album.

[Editor's note: Picasa no longer exists. The photo albums can be found in Google Photos]

Casablanca, Morocco

Rabat was a nice city to spend a few days relaxing. We saw most of the major attractions: Le Tour Hassan, the masoleum of Mohammed V, Chellah & Sala Colonia, the medina, kasbah des Oudaias and the Archaeology Museum.

Chellah and Sala Colonia are ruins in the south end of the city. Sala Colonia are Roman ruins, upon which the Merenid necropolis of Chellah was built in the 14th century. The whole site is overgrown with wild flowers and plants, and there are hundreds of nesting storks. It's a great ruin to wander around and sit and wonder. I liked it much better than Lixus, and about the same as Volubilis.

The medina in Rabat is different from other medinas, in that there's listed prices, and not much haggling. It's a good place to pick up souvenirs, because you know you're getting a fair price. Unfortunately most of the things we liked are difficult to transport, and it's easier just to buy it at Pier 1 when we get home.

The kasbah was okay to wander through; it's dusty and not as impressive as the kasbahs we saw in the High Atlas. The only nice part was the Andalusian gardens in the kasbah.

We also visited the Archaeology Museum. There's quite a few artefacts from the Roman ruins that we've visited. I've also just finished reading The Rubicon, which is a narrative history of the Roman empire, and so I recognized some of the names on the statues.

Aside from the tourist attractions, Rabat's a nice city. The ville nouvelle has large boulevards with pedestrian-only paths, which were filled every evening with strolling locals. There are plenty of restaurants, and we found an english bookstore that had second-hand classics. We spent our mornings sightseeing; the afternoons reading and sipping Moroccan wine from our terrace; and then having a nice dinner.

Our terrace overlooked a park, as well as a mosque. On Friday we were fortunate to witness the Friday noon prayers -- the attendees overflowed from the mosque into the surrounding streets! It was busier than a Catholic church on Christmas or Easter. The prayers are broadcast from loudspeakers atop the mosque, and so we could hear (although not understand the arabic), and see the men pray.

On our last night in Rabat we ate at an italian restaurant that had excellent pizza. It's the 2nd best pizza I've had (nothing comes close to the pizza at Fortino's in Vaughan).

We took the train from Rabat to Casablanca, staying at the Ibis hotel because it's right beside the train station (we'll be taking the train to the airport as well). Tomorrow we're off to see the Hassan II mosque (one of the few open to non-Muslims), and the next day we fly home.

Rabat, Morocco

We've reached Rabat, which is our last stop on this trip before returning to Casablanca to fly home. There's quite a lot to see in Rabat. We're planning to spend four days here, which is the longest we'll spend in one spot.

...

Asilah was a nice place to relax. On Saturday we took a little trek along the coastline to get to Paradise Beach, about 4km south of Asilah. There were great views of the Atlantic Ocean as we walked. Paradise Beach was a wide, long beach with fine sand, which we had almost all to ourselves. There was another person off in the distance, and oddly, a cow. We looked around for a few minutes, and then headed back to town. The round trip trek took us about four hours, and we were glad we left in the cool early morning hours (9am).

Dinners were hit-and-miss in Asilah. The first night we were very disappointed with the fish we ordered (swordfish and calamari). The next night, (at a different restaurant), the fish was excellent! (merlan and loup)

From Asilah we took a quick (30 minutes) grand taxi ride to Larache. We had reservations at La Maison Haute, and it was a short walk to the hotel with our packs. Larache is not as touristy as other northern towns, and we were pretty much ignored as we walked through town.

We were initially really impressed with La Maison Haute. It's a restored Hispanic-Moorish house, with 15' ceilings and large common rooms. The view from the rooftop of the city and beach was one of the best we've had in a hotel. However, our room was musty (and hot without a/c), and the manager was very overbearing, and so we cut our stay short, for only one night. It was our least favourite hotel this trip.

In the morning before we took off from Larache, we had a quick trip to the roman ruins at Lixus. These aren't restored at all, and not worth more than the 30 minutes we spent at the ruins.

A very comfortable CTM bus ride brought us to Rabat. We're staying at the Hotel Royal, beside the French embassy. Our balcony overlooks Jardin Triangle de Vue, a large park in the Ville Nouvelle. Last night we ate at a fancy french restaurant (I had braised lamb shank, Heather had half rack of lamb), for less than $30 CDN!

This morning visited Le Tour Hassan, and the mausoleum of Mohammed V. The rest of the day we're just going to relax...

(GoogleMaps was giving me trouble so I haven't updated the map)

Asilah, Morocco

We're now back on the Atlantic coast after taking a couple grand taxis from Tetouan to Asilah (where we are now) via Tanger.

Chefchaouen was a nice place to relax. We ate dinner at the same restaurant (La Lampe Magique) for three nights in a row. The restaurant was right on the main plaza, and from the rooftop terrace there was a great 360 degree view of Plaza Uta el-Hammam, the restored kasbah, the mountains and houses in the distance, and of the full moon. It was one of the best settings for a restaurant that I've ever seen. The food was great, and each night we stuffed ourselves full.

From Chefchaouen we took a grand-taxi to Tetouan. Originally we were going to take the CTM bus at 12:30pm, but we were packed up and ready to go by 10am. Rather than wait around for a bus, we took a grand-taxi. It was a good move as we were in Tetouan by noon.

Both of us felt good to be back in an urban setting. So far on this trip, we have stayed in the touristy parts of Morocco -- riads, kasbahs, medinas. However, most places also have a "nouvelle-ville", which are more cosmopolitan and modern.

There's a large spanish influence in Tetouan. As we walked through the pedestrian-only streets, we felt that we could have been in any city in Europe. I guess that's why most Europeans avoid the nouvelle-villes and head straight to the medinas -- they can get european at home.

In Tetouan we walked briefly through the medina but we both felt out-medina'd. We visited the archaeology museum, which was quite good. It had a number of artefacts from the roman ruins of Volubilis (which we've visited), and Lixus (which we're going to in a couple days).

There was not much else to Tetouan, and so this morning we took a couple grand taxis to get to Asilah (via Tanger as there's no direct grand taxi).

Asilah is a resort town on the Atlantic. The medina is heavily gentrified. It's nice to walk through, and does not have the hustle and bustle of souqs in other medinas. We walked around the medina for a bit.

We're staying at the Hotel Patio de la Luna, which looks like a nice place to have a bottle of wine after dinner tonight.

As you may guess from the name of the hotel, spanish is more prevalent as a 2nd language as we've travelled through northern Morocco. Between Heather's french, and my spanish, we've been able to travel quite easily throughout our trip.

Morocco is the only country I've visited that it has been difficult and expensive to have a beer (and I've been to other predominantly Muslim countries). Most cities / towns have only a handful of licensed restaurants, where a 200ml bottle of Flag costs Dh20 (about $3 CDN). On occasion we've been buying a bottle of wine in alcohol stores, if our hotel room had a nice terrace to have a drink. The alcohol store in Asilah is right beside the hotel, so we're thinking of having a cold beer before dinner!

Chefchaouen, Morocco

We're now relaxing in Chefchaouen, a little vacation within our trip. Chefchaouen (the 'ou' is pronounced as a 'w') is a little town in the Rif mountains. Most of the buildings are painted a sky-blue on the ground floor. The main square, Plaza Uta el-Hammam, contains a beautifully restored kasbah. The streets are all narrow cobblestone, climbing steeply up and down. The men here wear gowns with pointed hoods, and pointed shoes, which adds to the fairytale-like atmosphere. The only downside is that one of the main sources of income is from kif (aka marijuana). It's annoying to walk about town when every second step you have someone whisper to you if you'd like to buy some kif.

We've spent most of the time eating in nice restaurants overlooking the plaza, and reading / relaxing on the terrace in our hotel. Today we scrounged up enough energy to visit the kasbah and museum.

The weather has been a bit cooler since we left the desert. In the Todra Gorge and Meknes it was about mid-20s, and here it's been about the same. Today it feels a bit warmer.