Saturday 19 December 2009

What does the ghost from Bali say? U-boooood!

Our last stop in Bali turned out to be the best one. Ubud is the place to go for relaxing, culture, pampering and prettiness! Our room was glorious - with a four poster bed, terrace, pool and bath and the town itself was really pretty and bohemian.




The first night we arrived we went to see some Indonesian dancing accompanied by a Gamelan orchestra.







The costumes were extravagant and interesting and the dancing was strange - lots of eye dancing...

Then Jen decided to spend a day being scrubbed, rubbed, bathed, painted and generally pampered at a spa (hey it's cultural!) The lady put yogurt on my boobs...


A charming picture of Jen's pedicure


We visited the nearby monkey temple for a nice afternoon stroll









The next day Matt decided it might be time for his first hair cut in 5 months. He kept the skirt to wear at home though...


Ubud Art Market


A lotus flower


A Fruit Bat




A Jenny

So farewell to South East Asia....The next leg of the adventure continues in Australia!

Lovina is easy coz you're beautiful la la la la la...


 Lovina was very pretty

We thought it would be IndonEasier to get there!

What was intended to be a simple flight from Borneo to Bali via KL ended up as a complete NIGHTMARE! First off our first flight was delayed, meaning we missed our connecting flight and had to take 3 separate flights altogether and that we ended up arriving in Kuta at 3.00 am! Gah! Then the taxi driver and guest house ripped us off horribly and we stayed our first night in a PIT.

The next day, however, matters began to look up and we spent a day or two in Kuta avoiding the packed beach and visiting the nearby sea temple, Tanah Lot, by scooter.







On the way home we stopped for some fresh seafood on the beach at Jimbaran.




Jakarta airport; 1.00am

Orang U-glad we made it to Sepilok?

Now we're in Borneo, so we have to see at least one Orang Utan. After the thrills and spills of our rafting adventure, we set off across Sabah to the Sepilok Orang Utan Sanctuary.


NB - Not a real Orang Utan


Real Orang Utan


Orang Utan + Baby


Feeding time - yum, but look out for the crafty, thieving Macaques!

The sanctuary rescues Orang Utans and rehabilitates them so they can return to live in the jungle. Here the newly re homed ones can follow the ropes back to this feeding platform, where they are guaranteed food if they need it.

Now we had a taste for wildlife! Booking ourselves onto a 3 day river boat trip, we went into the wilderness to see the rare and endangered species of Borneo's diminishing rain forest.


Our river lodge


Proboscis monkeys :)

After our evening trip up the river seeing hornbills, egrets, macaques and proboscis monkeys, we headed back to land and got dressed up all sexy like for a jungle night walk.


'They call me sexy leech sock Matt round here'





Big Worm

We spent the next day riding up and down the river looking at the various wildlife there - unfortunately we never saw the fabled pygmy elephants :(. Most of our group left the next day and undertook a Heart of Darkness style mission through the jungle to an Oxbow lake.






Jenny at Oxbow lake




Fishing for our lunch


Our lunch!










The muddy trek home

For dinner, after our long day, we were invited to a neighbour's house in the area to celebrate Hari Raya - a Muslim festival. The villagers weren't Muslim, but they liked a good celebration and invited everyone in the area to eat cakes, ice cream and biscuits. And drink rice wine. And dance to bizarre pop videos...Pamela one la la la...






The next day it was time for us to leave the jungle, but we decided to leave a little piece of ourselves behind, by planting a tree. Rudyard Sapling.






On the way home, our driver dropped us at a nearby park where you could learn about the rainforest.


Indiana Jenny


Paddington Matt

After a brief and exhilarating visit to Borneo, we booked a flight to exotic Bali for our last 9 days in South East Asia.


Bad-ass Padas (arf)

Hello blog fans, we're back at last! After you last saw us we were in Kuala Lumpur being touristy. After this we decided to get back to being adventurous and upon awaking at our hostel, we spontaneously jumped on the first available flight to Borneo! We arrived later that evening in Kota Kinabalu.


Kota Kinabalu's main tourist attraction...

After deciding that maybe KK wasn't the most exciting place ever, we booked ourselves in for a white water rafting adventure on the grade IV Padas river. We hit a few snags on the way though, for example the train had broken down! Luckily the guides had devised alternative transport for us...










So we were punted along the tracks (sometimes at quite a pace I can tell 'ee) to the starting point. We were feeling bold and adventurous.




Unfortunately, we couldn't take the camera aboard our vessel to record the terrifying rapids, 'body rafting' and near capsizing of the boat as we went down such rapids as 'The Washing Machine' and 'The Head Hunter'. You'll just have to take our word for it that the whole thing was very exciting, there was lots of screaming (mostly from Matt) and we all ended up very wet! Hopefully Li (part of our rafting crew) will send us the pictures she took with her waterproof camera.