Ubud, Bali, Indonesia

I wanted to get to Kuta to pick up a motorbike so I could go inland to Ubud and further north to some more volcanoes. Bizarrely there's no bus to Kuta (the main tourist area) from the capital. I grudgingly pay 50,000 for a minivan to take me. In Kuta I hire a motorbike for 5 days and head to the hills.

Getting out of Kuta and back though Denpasar is a nightmare - the traffic is horrendous. Once out though the roads are great, and fairly empty. I keep going north and ascending higher and higher. As I approach the mount Batur caldera is starts to rain. I have no raincoat and get soaked - which is extremely refreshing at first but the cool altitude air soon makes you cold! After seeing Bromo in Java this area is nothing special but still nice. On the roads around the caldera people actually ride up to you on their bikes and try and sell you tours or trinkets, or stop you to "talk" - in all the times I've had to say no to someone selling something it's the first time on a motorbike!

Quite cold now I head for Ubud, further back down to the coast. I stop at a coffee plantation for a kopi Luwak. A Luwak is a cute furry thing that looks like a weasel. They eat the coffee beans and poo them out intact. People collect, clean and roast these beans - the beans journey is supposed to add to the flavour. The owner brought out a range of different coffee and tea for me to try (and ultimately buy from the extensive shop). I would say the Luwak kopi tastes rich, and like chocolate - but would never replace traditional coffee for me. I wanted to say hello to the Luwak out of the cage but it was sleeping and the guy said no :(

Many flavour coffee and tea - Luwak kopi in the china cup 

Sleepy Luwak

Ubud's nice. There's a billion spa's and art galleries and some FABULOUS architecture. Traditional Balinese architecture is incredible - the most beautiful and geometric I've ever seen. The shapes and details are truly astonishing. Hindu temples containing this wonderful art are everywhere - even most homes have their own temple. I stayed at Eka's home stay which has a fine family temple attached. 

I went to the monkey forest! On entrance you can buy bananas but as soon as you walk in you're mobbed - monkeys climbing all over you trying to grab the bananas! A particularly large one jumped on me and took the whole bunch. I love monkeys, but not all over me. Even when you have no food they tug at stuff, or try and grab your water bottle or sunglasses - keep everything locked down is the rule here.

On the ride back to Kuta I got stopped by the insanely corrupt police. I've heard that most tourists get stopped at least once on bikes - I spoke to one guy who'd paid out over 1,000,000 Rupiah in fines! The reason for stopping me was that my front wheel was on a pedestrian crossing when stopped at a red light. When he told me this I seriously thought it was a joke. As we were speaking, locals were JUMPING the red light with no helmet, some were even going the wrong way over the red light!! Corrupt policeman #1 showed me a piece of "official" printed A4 paper stating a 500,000 fine. I said that I wouldn't pay it... I can't pay it - I literally didn't have that cash on me. I had 250,000 and he said "give me this" I said no, and that I would give them 20,000. At this point another corrupt policeman turned up and they had a conversation. The corrupt policeman #2 turned to me and got angry, saying I must pay now or I go to court - he was certainly trying to freak me out. Corrupt policeman #1 was now making 'don't mess with him' faces at me. I slapped 200,000 in his hand and he put it in his pocket then said "go".

Back at the guest house I was speaking to a Balinese lady. She said "Just get a court slip from them and leave - pay nothing. Nothing will come of it. I know because my husband is a policeman! You can't do anything in Bali without being ripped off, everybody is corrupt!" - then she ranted about a printer cartridge that she'd taken in and it'd been swapped or something.

I wanted to get stopped again, to test the theory - but never did! :) 

Hoi An, Vietnam

The journey down the coast up the Hai Van pass is possibly one of the most beautiful coach journeys I've ever been on. Out of the right windown the rolling green fields roll up to peaking hills to the Laos border and on the left the sparkling blue coast winds as far as the eye can see. It leaves you uncertain which way to look! Top Gear described the journey (and road) as one of their all-time favourites.

The train would be equally as nice I'm sure

We checked into the only remaining hotel in Hoi An, the Dai Long ($15 for an a/c double) for the first night, as it was a public holiday and swarms of Vietnamese descended on the town!  It's a picture postcard shopping mecca. You can have anything you want, handmade, in a day. Hundreds and hundreds of shops line the streets offering to put something together for you from your description, a picture, website or from their own catalogues. It's not really my scene, this shopping thing. Ask anyone that knows me! It's not that I dislike shopping, more that I have no idea what to buy so get fed up. There's one person who really helps me, to the point of me giving her my credit card and her choosing £500 worth of goods, which get delivered to my door (no, it's not my mother). I was thinking about buying a suit here but I've lost 10kg since I started travelling, and a fitting now would be inaccurate when I get home and pile that western fat back on. Talitha had some cute leather shoes made almost identical to a picture on a website. They certainly look well made (they're still going strong one month later) so I feel I should give props to the makers;

Shopping aside there's not much else to do. There's eating and drinking of course and Hoi An has many beautiful restaurants set in French colonial buildings but they don't financially benefit the long-term budget traveller, so we eat in the tasty cheap set meal joints (with bia hoi for 4000dong!). At night the town is beautifully lit up with lanterns hanging everywhere, on the bridge, the river, draped amongst the flowers on the colonial buildings and up the high street. It's not so much a backpacking destination, it's more for couples and families, but it's worth a stop even if only for one night.  

We hire four motorbikes. They are key here, giving you the freedom to visit one of the many beaches up the coast. We avoid the town beach and have a quick swim at An Bang. We then decide to find some even quieter beaches further north but all of the land north of the open beaches in Hoi An has been bought by foreign million dollar resorts, although they don't seem to have built anything yet, or started to build something but didn't finish. We find one derelict looking building around 8km north of Hoi An and wheelspin the motorbikes over the sand for a closer look. Steve, a friend of Emily, heads in first when a security guard, with gun, appears from nowhere. Time to leave. Even further north security men sit in little huts on the roadside sadly preventing us getting to these beaches. In the end we give up and head back to Hoi An. Shame that someone, looking for a little quiet beach, can't just turn up and have a swim, or bathe for an hour on this beautiful coastline. 

The next day Talitha stays back to write her blog so me and Kylie share a bike and Steve and Emily share a bike. We scoot off and get lost around some back roads, then head north on the main road to Da Nang. About 10km up the road Steve's bike gets a puncture, right outside a "garage" (some guys house!). He repairs it quick-time and we're off again.

Mr. Fix it

We're approached by a seemingly innocent lady on a moped, telling us that we're near the marble mountains and we can park in her shop if we like. With no beaches about, and having read about the marble mountains, we follow her and park in her shop which sells a million marble carvings from the tiniest Buddha to the biggest horse statue (complete with realistic penis) which are all ship-able to your home country. We get a ticket and head past a stupid plastic penguin bin (wtf?) up the stairs to the top of the tourist mountain where there is a rock temple and some ancient carvings of Buddha in caves with various sharp and slippery rocks to clamber on (and thorn trees to put your hands on) to get to the summit, for some fantastic views.

Back down and collecting the bikes we of course had to "just look" in the ladies shop. Despite the  impressive array of marble goods I don't purchase anything as it adds quite a bit of weight to the long-term travellers backpack, and I already have various Buddha souvenirs.

The ride home in the afternoon sunshine was irresponsible bliss with clear fast stretches of road and whooping overtaking, fast accelerating, cornering and braking (occasionally delivering Kylie's breasts into my upper back) then cruising into the town to return the bikes, have a quick shower then straight on the night bus to Na Trang (shudder!)

Amritsar, India

Punjab: home of tandoori chicken. Ahh yea! Rudely woken up at 5am we're ushered off. The four of us bleary-eyed are immediately surrounded by eager tuk-tuk drivers, do these guys ever sleep? Fighting our way out and trying to work out where we are from the lonely planet map we head off down the road to the "tourist lodge hotel". We wake up the night person, who agreed that it's fine for me and Bryan to sit in a room for two hours until the manager came in, which we did. The room hadn't been cleaned from the previous people, we sat around reading then got changed, into exactly the same clothes.

Twins

After some discussion we decided not to take a room for that evening, and head straight out after sightseeing. When the manager arrived he wanted to charge us the FULL amount for the room which we'd only sat in until he'd arrived. We eventually agreed on paying half the amount stating our annoyance at the night-staff who said it was fine for us to relax for an hour. 

We went to see the amazing golden Sikh temple - very very beautiful. We hit this temple on a Sunday and it was SO busy. There were people everywhere. To get into the temple (which is in the middle of a lake) we squeezed into a bottleneck with thousands of Sikhs for 2 hours! The prayer is maintained 24/7 from within the temple where there's almost a full band, and some holy men. Out the back we "drink" some holy water then head back to the mainland past the still queueing hoards. 

Golden temple

After a quick stop in cafe coffee day (India's premier western style coffee house) tandoori chicken enters the hunger arena. A policeman highly recommended the Hotel Anand, a very quick tuk-tuk drive away. A soul less dark air-conditioned place but the chicken was absolutely fantastic, with a garlic naan and beer on the side. 

After some investigation we realise we're not going to be able to get a train/bus out of Amritsar today so we get tickets for tomorrow. We also realise that we're going to have to go back to the hotel and tell them that we are now staying - which was fine. We ended up in a dormitory to ourselves, however we weren't able to get him to knock off what we'd paid for the room earlier. Nil points for customer service.

There's a hilarious India/Pakistan border closing ceremony every day around 5pm. On either side there are huge seating arrays, thousands of people, massive sound systems and even a cheerleader man to whip the crowds up into a frenzy! It's like being at a football match. Once the dancing and cheering is over the border guards come out and march to and from the border - someone likened it to the Ministry of Silly Walks. The Indian and Pakistani border guards taunt each other with fighting stances, the flags are lowered and the border closed. Quite a spectacle!

Indian guard kicking self in the head

Trying to get a bus back a tuk-tuk already full with 6 people stopped and gestured us to get in. Bryan sat next to the driver and me and an Irish guy we'd met jump in the back for the 30km journey to Amritsar. Everyone on the road was in party mode: cheering, waving, honking and generally driving dangerously! People on bikes, tuk-tuk's and cars would come so close we could put our feet on their front bumper and swap drinks. The funniest thing was overtaking Mimi and Steve who'd decided a cycle-rickshaw would be a good mode of transport to travel 30km!?!?

 

The next day was spent lazing about in the hotel garden drinking beer and discussing quantum mechanics, waiting for our respective overnight modes of transport. This is where me and Bryan parted company (for now)

You can see all of the photo's here

Bikaner, India

With Greta gone I'm now travelling alone, well, for a few hours at least. I meet Bryan on the bus - a very well travelled American. He has a hostel booked in Bikaner so I jump in a tuk-tuk with him. The hostel is full except for one "room". He leads me up to the rooftop where a great view of the city and a bed awaits. He says I can have it for 100 rupees. Why not - I slept under the stars last night. I accept the roof, insert ear plugs to dull the traffic noise and have a great nights sleep!

rooftop bedroom

There's not much to see in Bikaner itself, it's mainly used as a transport hub by tourists, so for us it will take us to Amritsar later that evening. The hostel manager did however tell us that it's a great place to shop for fabrics, especially wool, as it has the biggest wool factory in the world (I haven't confirmed this with Google so please correct me if wrong). Needless to say I didn't shop for fabrics but instead decided to go to the rat temple 30km away.

The temple is extremely busy being a weekend so we queue to get in. The rats contain the souls of dead worshippers and are sacred. They are offered milk and corn by the worshippers. If a rat is killed it has to be replaced with a golden rat - I don't recall seeing any golden rats though! A white rat is especially lucky. There are holes in the walls at ground level which they enter/exit the temple for food. I thought there would be hundreds swarming about but there wasn't so many. There was maybe twenty in a group around the giant milk bowls at one point. Considering there's (too much) food for them they looked in pretty shabby condition, I've seen healthier looking rats in sewers.

Rattus Rattus

Waiting at the train station to get back to Bikaner we pulled quite a crowd. Normally there's a small staring party but this was literally twenty people, gathered close around us, not saying a word but occasionally trying to take sneaky pictures. On the train was the same, with people curiously studying from afar. Nearing Bikaner a child had a trouser accident, which ended up all over the floor when the mother took the trousers off, making getting down from our 3 tier bunk treacherous!

That evening, with nothing else available, me and Bryan book a romantic double bed sleeper bus to Amritsar.

Dambulla, Sri Lanka

A long winding bus down the mountain from Nuwara Eliya to Kandy with an interesting chat to a South Korean architect living in Colombo, then a quick bus change and north to Dambulla for a one night stop, just to see the rock temple.

outside

Inside

A giant gold Buddha greets you atop the Buddha museum, which contains various Buddha in various forms donated from different countries and other small exhibits. You then head up to the rock face, maybe 200m up stairs in the baking afternoon heat, passing fruit stalls, beggars and gift shops selling offerings and monkeys that point at their mouths asking for food and scratch you if you don't supply - little buggers!

give me food!

My shirt at the top looked like it'd been dipped in a bucket of water. At the top you take your shoes off (as always) and hop about on the hot rock towards the nearest part of shade. The caves in the rocks are FULL of Buddha's: statues and pictures everywhere, no surface untouched. There are pure white ornate entrances around the caves with pathways to each cave. The view from the top is amazing, back over Dambulla and the green valleys beyond.

I sat about with the monkeys for a while trying to cool down a little before the walk down. They're fascinating to watch. One was grooming the other, picking fleas off and eating them. The one that was being groomed was watching the groomer, intently, studying it's face. I wonder what it was thinking?

Headed back down and had a walk about the town and grabbed a haircut inspired by the monkeys. Not much to the town: a main road down the middle with some shops and a huge wholesale food market in the middle. Back at the guest house (Healy Inn) I had some chilli cashew nuts and water, got into my mosquito net base with the kindle and read for hours and hours.

Weherehenea, Sri Lanka

I didn't stay in Weherehenea. I literally had all of my worldly possessions with me as I was travelling from Mirissa to Tissamaharama. I'd read about this temple so hopped on the 349 bus in Matara and the friendly bus conductor informed me when to get off, or I would still be on the bus now i'm sure!

The temple was deserted apart from some Monks and a man cleaning the dome. Shoes off and a scorching barefoot walk into the concrete grounds (100 rupees) reveal the enormous sculpture.  Quite something! This is the biggest Buddha on the island at 50m, and that's in the sitting (meditation) pose! If I was to ever have a sculpture of me I would want it this size.

 

Another 200 rupees and you can walk down into the tunnels and up into the building surrounding the Buddha. It was nice and cool underground. Every inch of wall or corridor has a painting or sculpture of Buddha - you wouldn't forget even if you tried. Eventually you get under the giant Buddha and to the stairs to make your way up to the top, with various viewing platforms along the way to look at Buddha's various parts. I particularly like the feet, as sat in the lotus position.

At the top the view is fantastic. Not only of the Buddha and temple grounds, but the countryside in each direction. I took quite some time relaxing up here as there was no-one about. Lovely!

You can see all of the photo's here