There is really no reason for this post, other than to make all of us, me included, jealous that we aren’t there right now.
I actually cried when we left Indonesia, and now I remember why.
There is really no reason for this post, other than to make all of us, me included, jealous that we aren’t there right now.
I actually cried when we left Indonesia, and now I remember why.
As most of you probably know, we’ve been traveling for the last four months, through Thailand, Cambodia, Singapore, Indonesia, and then about 6 weeks ago we arrived in Australia.
Our plan was to do some traveling around Australia, and hopefully find jobs so we could actually set up shop and live out here for the next few months.
We started in Sydney, and drove all the way up to Cairns (stopping in lots of neat places along the way, tons of posts to come) but eventually we made our way back down to Byron Bay, just south of Brisbane, because we loved it here so much.
Now we’re kind of facing a tough choice. Australia is really expensive, and it’s been a lot harder than we thought it would be to find jobs here. I guess that makes sense, because what employer wouldn’t rather have someone long term than someone that will only be around for a few months?
Before we left for this trip, we were putting away money every month into a separate account for a really long time, so we had saved up enough for our trip, plus we figured we’d be making some money once we got to Australia.
We have about half the money we saved up left, but we’re trying to figure out what we want to do now. It’s basically the age old question of choosing between being responsible and sticking to the plan you made, or taking off on a wild crazy adventure.
We kind of have two choices. We can stick to our plan, keep trying to find jobs here, and we can spend the next few months working and hanging around in Byron Bay, hopefully making enough money to support ourselves and then spending a couple of weeks in New Zealand before we go home.
In option A, if we find jobs, we hopefully wouldn’t really be spending anything else from our vacation fund, so we’d have it to put towards our next adventure.
Or, we can say screw it, catch the next flight back to Indonesia, and spend the next month diving and traveling around Bali, Gili and Lombok, then fly to New Zealand for a week or so and then fly home earlier than we’d planned, maybe sometime in early November.
In option B, we would basically be spending everything we have left in our travel fund, and we’d be home earlier than we’d planned, but we’d be doing a lot more, and having a lot more fun, which is basically the reason we spent all that time saving money, amiright?
Sooooo….. decisions, decisions.
Nobody knows what to do.
The absolute best part about Indonesia for me was the diving. We’d heard over and over again that the diving there was amazing, and it couldn’t have been more true.
These pictures don’t really do it justice, since they were taken on a go-pro with no flash, but I wanted to share some anyway. In reality, the water was crystal clear, and the colours of the fish and the coral were vibrant.
We stayed on the island of Flores, in Labuan Bajo, for 5 days, and we were diving 3 dives per day for 3 of those days. When we first signed up to do it, I was worried that it might be a lot, considering the boy had only been diving once before, in Thailand.
It turned out that my worry was completely unfounded, he loved it, and by the end of the third day, I was so sad that it was over that I wished we would have done at least one more day.
I tried to explain to him how spoiled he was, that some of us got certified in Zihuatanejo, Mexico where you couldn’t see 10 feet in front of you. He got clear turquoise waters, thousands of different kind of fish, sharks, turtles, and manta rays.
We dove with Komodo Dive Center, out of Labuan Bajo, and I would absolutely recommend them. They were very professional, their food was great, and their staff were very knowledgable and fun.
My favourite dive sites were Batu Bolong, and Crystal Rock, but we did nine different dives at different sites around Komodo National Park, and all of them were pretty amazing.
We are already planning our next trip to dive in more of Indonesia’s gorgeous reefs, and I seriously can’t wait.
We’ve been here for almost 7 weeks now, so here are some of the things I love/hate about it so far:
Best things about Australia:
1. The city names: Toowoomba, Wagga Wagga, Wollongong, Mullumbimby.
2. The snacks. They sell Dairy Milk chocolate at literally every place in this country, including travel agencies, hospitals, and beauty salons, probably. They also have Smarties. And something that looks alarmingly like it might be dill pickle dip (that’s what a gherkin is right?) but I’m too scared to try it. I’ve been burned before.
3. The people. The people here are the bestttttt. Super friendly, and chatty, I find myself just randomly engaged in conversation with people all the time. Also, everyone calls me Mate. I respond to that.
4. The gorgggggeousness. I didn’t realize how few people were in Australia, and most of the ones that are here live in the big cities, so in between the cities, there are just tiny little towns, and vast stretches of land that house the most amazing natural beauty. Every time you go outside there is a mountain vista, a waterfall, an unbroken stretch of white sand beach or a stunning ocean view.
Worst things about Australia:
1. Three words: Kangaroo. Koala. Roadkill.
It is actually heart breaking, and I don’t want to talk about it.
On the way home from the luwak coffee plantation, our driver offered to stop at the Bat Temple so we could check it out on the way back to Ubud. I figured it would be a cool temple with maybe some bat sculptures or something, so I agreed, and was excited to visit.
We arrived at the temple walls, it was across the road from a beautiful black sand beach, and it looked similar to other temples we’d visited in Bali, maybe a bit busier.
I made my way inside, stopping to chat with a few people and getting a sacred belt that everyone needs to wear in order to enter the temple. I wandered around the grounds for a bit, admiring the architecture, and eventually headed toward the main dais.
As I walked up the steps toward the altar, I heard a strange high pitch noise, but I couldn’t really tell what it was. I stopped about 10 feet away from the altar, which was positioned right in the entrance of the cave, and I thought it was strange that the beautifully carved figures and floral offerings on the altar were all covered in something white.
At about the same moment I realized that, I happened to glance just above the altar to the opening of the cave, and that’s when I saw the bats. Thousands of bats, hanging together, moving, squeaking, occasionally flying back into the cave.
It was quite literally horrifying, especially since my attitude toward bats can basically be summed up thusly:
To quote Ace Ventura, “Have you ever seen a bat? They’re hideous! Lifeless, beady eyes; clawed feet; huge, grotesque wings, and fangs! They give you rabies, you know!”
It was kind of like a car accident, I couldn’t look away, but I did manage to take a few pictures and get a video. I didn’t think anyone would believe me if I didn’t have evidence.
The temple is actually very sacred, you can learn more about it here, and the architecture is beautiful. The temple grounds isn’t very big, so it doesn’t take long to see the whole thing, and it’s definitely not something you’ll soon forget.
I’d kind of heard about luwak coffee a few months before we left on our trip, but I didn’t really pay close attention to the description, only that it was the most expensive coffee in the world.
On the way home from Pura Lempuyang, we stopped in at a little farm where they grow coffee beans, cocoa, and spices, and they also produce luwak coffee.
In case you aren’t up on the latest in the world of strange beverages, luwak coffee is produced by coffee beans that have first been eaten, digested and expelled by a luwak (a mongoose) and then the beans are gathered up, roasted and crushed.
Something about the stomach acids of the luwak reacting with the coffee beans makes it taste way better (supposedly) than any other kind of coffee produced.
The little farm was pretty cute, they had examples of all of the different kinds of spices and foods that they grow there, and there was a woman roasting and grinding coffee beans, and she let me take a turn.
The farm had a lovely view of a rice field, and they give you free samples of everything they produce, including a bunch of different coffees and teas. The luwak coffee was pretty good, but I didn’t think it was worth $100USD per cup.
I loved the lemongrass tea though, it tastes like the hot iced tea they used to serve us at summer camp when we were little, which was completely full of sugar and made sleeping a bit tricky, but was totally delicious. I bought a bag of it, and I wish I’d had room in my backpack to buy all the bags they had.
They had one little mongoose there so people could see what a luwak actually looked like. He was very small and cute and I wanted to adopt him.
While we were in Ubud, we stayed in a traditional Balinese homestay, which had been turned into a hotel. They are very common in Ubud, and the one we were staying in was wonderful, the woman who owned it was the sweetest lady, and even though we were out the door by 5 a.m. every single day we stayed there, she always left a little breakfast package on the front desk for us to grab on our way out.
I especially loved the gardens. The whole home is situated around the gardens in the center, complete with fountains, statues and beautiful flowers, as well as a temple for the family to pray at.
As pretty as it was, there were a few downfalls, so I wanted to share them in case any one else is going to be staying in one of these, so you can prepare accordingly before you arrive.
If you are staying in a homestay in the middle of the city, bring ear plugs. There is a lot of noise, and it can be hard to sleep. The first night we stayed there, I was kept awake about half the night by dogs barking in the neighborhood.
Just when they finally stopped, the fan in our room started squeaking, this loud, horrible squawking noise, but we couldn’t turn it off because it was so hot in our room and there was no air conditioning.
Finally, just when the fan stopped squeaking, almost down to the minute, the roosters started crowing. It was so perfectly timed that I briefly wondered if I was being secretly filmed for a reality TV show. Earplugs are definitely your friend.
Also, an eye mask. The room we were staying in was all brick, but on the one side of the room there were decorative cut outs along the top of the wall that were open to the outside to let in more light.
There was a mosquito net around the bed to keep the bugs out, and it was really pretty, for awhile, but eventually I wanted to go to sleep and it was too bright in the room. Luckily, my airplane eye mask saved the day.
The last thing I wanted to mention is that our bathroom was outside, on a balcony. It was completely open to the air, which was unexpected, but it was actually really nice showering outside with the sky above you. It was in the city, so it’s possible I put on a bit of a show for people in surrounding buildings, but you can’t have everything in life.
I don’t think all of the homestay bathrooms are set up this way, even within our hotel I don’t think they were, so if you want to make sure that your bathroom is indoors, just check with the hotel before you book.
All in all, it was a really great experience, and I would absolutely stay there again.
Currently spending a few weeks living with an Australian family on a farm just outside of Byron Bay.
The work is hard, but fun, the family is wonderful, and the benefits are numerous, including fresh eggs everyday, veggies straight from the garden, and the opportunity to finally wear a wicker cowboy hat in an unironic way.
The rice fields in Bali might just be my favourite thing in the whole world. I need to make up a new word to describe the colour, because “green” doesn’t really seem to do it justice.
We only spent two days in Bali, even though I was completely in love with it, because we really wanted to go to Labuan Bajo to do some diving, so we had to be kind of picky about the things we were going to do.
I had seen pictures of the Pura Lempuyang temple, and it was so gorgeous I really wanted to go. I didn’t realize how far it was from Ubud, about 2 1/2 hours, but we did some other things on the way back so it wasn’t too bad. When I told the lady at our homestay where we wanted to go, she was kind of surprised, because apparently not a lot of tourists go there.
She kind of tried to talk us out of it, because it was kind of far away, and she tried to convince us to go to the top of the volcano instead, which sounded kind of amazing, but also really busy, since it’s one of those things that a lot of tourists do when they are in Bali. But she had been to Pura Lempuyang herself, and told us how gorgeous it was, so we decided to check it out.
We set out at about 5 a.m., with our driver, who was really cool and had traveled all over the world. He ended up climbing up to the top of the mountain with us, even though he didn’t have to, and along the way he told us all about the Hindu religion in Bali, what they believe, and how it’s different from Hinduism in India. It was really interesting.
The climb itself was kind of arduous. We knew going into it that it was 1700 steps to the top, but what we didn’t know was that there was actually a lot of walking and climbing of stairs before we even arrived at the 1700 stairs. I had to bribe myself with Oreos just to keep my legs moving.
It was kind of chilly out when we left, at least 4 people told us to bring jackets and wear pants, but we didn’t listen and thank goodness for that.
I was cold for about the first 15 steps, but once we really got into the climb I was so hot and sweaty that I was very glad I didn’t wear more clothing. I did bring a sarong though, since you need one to enter the temples, so bring one if you’ll be visiting, or they rent them at the bottom.
Unfortunately, it was kind of cloudy and foggy on the day that we visited, but just as we were arriving it cleared off for a few minutes so we could see the gorgeous view, including the volcano.
The views were gorgeous, and my legs were shaking so bad the next day I could barely walk, but the most memorable thing for me was the monkeys.
We were told at the bottom of the climb that the monkeys at the top were very aggressive and would bite and attack people who were climbing up, especially if they were carrying food, so we were each given a thick wooden walking stick, and given a crash course in monkey beating.
Luckily I didn’t have to use my vicious new skill, but I totally would have if one of those monkeys had tried to steal my Oreos.
loveliness. 