An Indonesian Adventure.

[billyboy]

The last night before the long road journey ' home ' to Bajo before my flight to Denpasar and back to Ubud.

My driver said he would take me to a good place to watch the sunset, we had his two young nephews with us for the trip. On route we passed a rice field with a lady hard at work in it and then a man returning from work....i am sure he was joking when he raised his cutting sythe...well i hope he was!

It was a lovely evening but with clouds that came and went as sunset arived it was not the best, great views though.

Billy.

[fileeep]

Volcano%203_.jpg
great shot billy....

[billyboy]

I had allowed a couple of more days in Indonesia before i left and i was to return to Ubud. This was good advise from Betti because as i arived at Bajo airport there was the most torrential tropical thunderstorm i have ever seen, looking out of the departure lounge windows there was nothing, no runway no grass just what looked like a gigantic lake! I guessed that my flight back to Depasar would already be in flight and wondered what will happen if it stayed like this. Glancing around the departure lounge I noticed i sign poster advertising a private plane should you need to get back to Denpasar for an International flight, i do not know how they would have managed this but the price was an astronomical one, it was something like a three thousand dollar seat based on six people sharing. As things turned out the monsoon subsided and within a short while the runway was visible and my little plane arived. I would most definitely leave a couple of days or more to get back if you are visiting here, just to be on the safe side.

Back in Ubud i bought a ticket for the nighttimes show at Ubud Palace Temple, it was from one of the many touts selling them on the main Ubud road. This place is on the corner just opposite monkey forest road.I was the first person that evening at the show, i arrived over an hour before the start to get a good seat and to my annoyance all the front row seats had brochures on them and bags of food and drinks left by people who had gone of elsewhere, a bit like the beach towel on the sunbed syndrome i suppose, well i did not want to have a second row or worse seat and annoy other people by photographing over other ones heads so i sat for over an hour on a little jutting out rock to the side of the stage setting. When the place started filling up the front rowers turned up, they looked like a Japanese tour...Oh well i made the most of where i was.

The show is about a Warrior with an assortment of different dances, i can't find my leaflet from there to add more information but it was a very colourful lovely evening watching the show. The music is amazing and the dancers are brilliant. I have an assortment of photographs to start of with and i will enclose this link from there which was done my someone else just to give you an idea of the place and music. It is a very small show that is held every evening, worth a visit if you are ever here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEsfe...eature=related

Billy.

[Betti]

it's really worth asking around about the shows in Ubud (e.g. at the guesthouse) because some are MUCH better than the others.
the company who does the emergency airlifts is the same that sank me. one does wonder what they can do with a plane?! :-)
sorry, I really cannot miss a good opportunity for sneakily stabbing another little knife into Perama's back. they won't go down but it still does feel like the appropriate thing to do.

Billy, I'm really hoping to go back in October (nothing booked yet but looks very much like our relationship with M. has survived all this time apart - the only reason why I may some day forgive Perama for the shipwreck), any tips you still may have up your sleeve? I cannot be grateful enough for telling me about Kanawa, the locals are not really enthusiastic about it, probably they have no idea whatsoever how it compares to other Malaysian / Indonesian snorkelling islands! I'm really hoping to teach M. to snorkel there. it's such a special place. funny how clumsy Asians can be in the water, truly shocking :-) and he was amazed how comfortable I looked. guess which one of us grew up 2 kms from the sea :-)

really hoping to see more pics from you here, Billy. please don't abandon this thread.
I wish I had the energy to add pics as well... but I'm still mostly in "staring blankly" mode. too much work. I can read but even posting pics seems like way too much effort :-/

[billyboy]

Thanks betti,

But sadly this thread is only a couple of posts away from the end, please feel freely to add any pictures you have to keep it going, mine are now nearly all exhausted.

It was and has been a trip of a lifetime...and all thanks to your kind help and advise as usual, the same as you did for me when i visited Burma.

On that subject early next year it will be 'My Trip To Burma Take 2' I am all booked up just the planning to do.

Billy.

[billyboy]

Here are a few more photographs from the warrior show at the Temple.

Billy.

[billyboy]

Just a few more pictures from the show.

Billy.

[Betti]

ohhh places like this, that's when I always wish I had a better camera. but then, I would hate to take care of a big, clumsy, expensive thing all the time. lucky that I can always con Billy to into visiting the same places and take the photos for me :-D

[billyboy]

Thanks Betti,

Feel free to lead me into any more of your interesting places that you have been to, i have enjoyed following in your footsteps through Burma and Indonesia these last couple of years, it has been an experience of a lifetime. It is realy great that we can all share our little favourite places and moments here on this website. Makes all the difference to having a brilliant time for our much anticipated trips.

Billy.

[Betti]

Billy, I don't have anything special lined up for this October (probably returning to Bali and Flores), but next year I will have 10 weeks off even if I stay here another year (YippEEEE!) and the plan is Sulawesi, Maluku and Papua - the off the beaten track north-eastern archipelagos of Indonesia. Hopefully with a guide who can speak perfect Indonesian ;-)