Traveling in the direction of our dreams

This is our last country before heading home. We can hardly believe that almost 11 months have past. Mentally both of us are ready to return to the UK as we are feeling a little travel weary. It is tiring being on the road all the time, with nowhere to call home.

Anyway, we arrived in Mexico City during the Bicentennial Celebrations of Independence. A good time to be here! The square (Zocalo) right by our hostel was full of revellers, street sellers, dancers and shamans. An interesting mix. The celebrations are going on for one month. It is a place where you can literally sit there the whole day and people watch. We chose our hostel well as it was only two minute walk from where it was all happening.

We were surprised how expensive Mexico is. We had kept a little bit of our money back so we could buy mementos from here but gifts, accommodation and travel is certainly stretching our budget! Anyway, we spent 4 days in Mexico City. During this time, we took a walking tour which was great as it helped us get our bearings and also allowed to see areas of the city that we might not have necessarily seen ourselves. We discovered that Mexico City is built on a lake, so as the water beneath it is being used, the city sinks further. We also found out that the city is 2250m above sea level, which explained why we were so out of breath climbing stairs. Another day was spent at the Anthropology museum which had fantastic examples of Mayan and Aztec culture. Enroute, I (Sarah) fell in love with some sculptures mainly because they were all based on angels - so had to have my photo taken with each one of them. It is certainly a city of angels- you see them everywhere.

Aztec calendar

We found it quite difficult to plan our time here. Information is hard to come by as well as trying to handle the language barrier. We intended to head South so we could see the famous Mayan ruins and spend a week on the beach. Having bought our bus tickets at the station with our pigeon Spanish we later discovered that we would not be able to travel as the South had been hit by a hurricane causing massive floods and unfortunately took the lives of people. We were lucky that we hadn´t travelled as not only would we have come face-to-face with mother nature but we would have been stranded. We heard that one traveller has been stuck for 3 weeks. Being so close to going home, we could not risk it. We realised that our travel was drastically limited and could only travel West from Mexico City. Both the roads in the East and the South were underwater and the North was a too dangerous area to travel. Knowing this, we decided to change our international flights and come home a week early.

We decided to get travel to the furthest town first, Guadalajara, and work our way back to Mexico City. An 8 hour bus journey, after our Asia experiences, wasn't something we were looking forward too. We were, however, very pleasantly surprised! The first class coaches have TVs in the back of the seats, enough leg room for someone who is 7 feet tall and complementary food and drinks.

Guadalajara is a big city, with some 5 million people - a smaller version of Mexico City but not quite as frantic. Our first hostel was awful so after one night, we had to walk round trying to find another place to stay. At Hostel Degallado, we had a fantastic room with two balconies where we could watch the world go by but was very expensive for a traveller´s budget. We spent our time doing the usual, seeing the sights and hitting the markets - no bargains here though. Nearby is the town of Tequila, the home of the drink by the same name. We went on a day trip there with the promise of being able to drink as much tequila as you wanted (not great for me, Sarah, as I hate the stuff)!! Along with drinking as much as we could (the aged tequila was quite nice - no need for lime or salt) we learnt how it was made, and that the plant needs to grow for 7 years before it can be harvested.

Tequila tour

Our next stop was Guanajuanto, a UNESCO site. This was more like the Mexico we expected to find with lots of small squares with alfresco cafes and music being played by traditionally dressed men to the patrons. We didn't do a huge amount here, our time was predominantly spent watching the world go by as well as reading and drinking beer and tea. We did, however, do a couple of things which included a visit to a mummy museum and an abandoned silver mine. The mummy museum was weird; unlike typical mummy corpses where the dead are wrapped in bandages, these bodies were extremely well preserved without the need for binding. Their preservation was due to the chemical composition of the soil in the area.

Our last stop before Mexico City was San Miguel De Allende. According to Conde Nast in 2007, this town was voted the 7th best place to visit in the world - high hopes indeed! It was a nice enough place but we don´t think it lived up to its accolade. Cafes and shops were much more upmarket than the other places we had visited in Mexico but this is due to 10% of the population being expats. On 10.10.10 we witnessed the annual celebration of Archangel Michael. We found ourselves in the middle of a street parade which demonstrated different tribal traditions. The day culminated in a firework display and a sound and light show. The light projections were onto the cathedral which were pretty spectacular.

Light projection onto cathedral

So back to Mexico City for a week. We filled our days visiting the local museums, did some last shopping in the markets and visited a few other 'tourist' sites. The most impressive being the Aztec ruins at Teotihuacan. At last we were finally seeing what we had come to Mexico for (we actually wanted to see Mayan civilization but never mind). The Pyramids are indeed awesome - the two main pyramids have been built seven times (every time a leader died a new pyramid was built over the top). The tallest, Pyramid de Sol (Sun) stood over 65m tall. It is good luck to ascend both pyramids to balance out the energies of life and death - (Sol represents birth and Lune (moon) death). The pyramids were places where human sacrifices were carried out everyday to ensure that the sun rose the following day.

In the South of the city we visited Xochimilco, a place of interlacing canals and floating gardens. We rented a boat for a couple of hours with our Mexican friend, Ferdinanda and took a leisurely journey along the water. Food and gift sellers come up to the side of your boat and punt their wares. Lots of Mexicans were out on the water, celebrating with traditional music and alcohol - they are definately party people. It was a lovely way to pass the afternoon.

Canals in Mexico City

We have spent 327 days on the road. Have we changed - who knows? We will let everyone back at home be the judge of that. But what an amazing time we have had, the places we have visited and the people we have met will stay with us forever. Thanks for reading our blog over the last 11 months - we hope you have enjoyed it. Love to the world.

The end of one adventure. The beginning of the next one.

Ps there will be one more blog!!

Our first introduction to the US was from the airport´s Agricultural Department. This was because we had a Subway sandwich which was bought at Auckland Airport - rules and regulations gone mad! Anyway, we managed to hold onto our precious food which was our brunch whilst we waited for my brother Paul to pick us up from the airport.

It felt like we had a busy first day mainly because we had crossed the dateline and arrived in the US before we had even left NZ. So it was groundhog day for us, re-living the same day minus the sleeping inbetween (mainly due to the diabolical leg room offered on the Qantas flight). In the evening, we went to a great pasta restaurant where one portion sufficed for two (loving super size America!) and then went to watch Paul´s friends play in a band. At this point we had been awake for 36 hours. We slept on Phnam´s and Mardis´sofa (friends of my brother) as he was was inbetween rentals. We felt pretty bad that we woke up in someone's lounge close to midday whilst they were trying to go about their day.

The only photo with my eyes open!

We spent the week just relaxing. Mainly because every country we go to we end up racing from one place to the next. As we were only in one town for one week, there was no need to go on a sightseeing frenzy. For the first time, we actually felt like we were on holiday.

Paul took us to ´Cold Springs Tavern´, a great place about 20 minutes drive away. It is where predominately bikers meet for a drink or two whilst listening to live music. It had a good atmosphere where you could easily spend an afternoon. We spent the night in Paul´s new apartment with us sleeping on a mattress and Paul on a yoga mat!

Cold Spring´s Tavern

The following days were a mix of sitting in the park, walking along the beach promenade, some exercise, eating and catching up with Paul´s friends. We were surprised how cheap it was to eat out. It put NZ and the UK to shame. I (Sarah) was particularly excited that everywhere you went you could get free mineral water and in supermarkets and shops, you could help yourself to free tea and coffee. Now, I know that sounds sad but when you are travelling, you become very grateful for free things! The other thing that I was impressed with was the ingenuity of the homeless people. Unfortunately, there were many but I loved the ideas they came up with to encourage you to donate money. The other thing that I (Sarah) got excited about was ´Zoltar´. I remember as a child loving the arcade type machine whereby an animatronic gypsy would tell your fortune - well guess what? I found said machine on the pier in Santa Barbara. I had to have a go - loved it just as much as I did when I was child.

Zoltar on the pier

Had a great last day eating brunch on the beach front with Paul and his friend Ada. In the evening, we went out to celebrate a birthday followed by a night hike to the top of the hills that sit behind the town. It was so peaceful and all three of us laid on a rock looking up at the stars. We could have stayed there all night. We didn't get to bed until midnight which wasn't great as we had to be up at 5.45am to leave for the airport.

Brunch at Sambos

Night Hike

Our last day was somewhat spoilt by our airline going bust! We had planned to do some cheesy sightseeing in LA before getting our flight but we had to re-arrange our plans as our flight had changed. Two evenings before we were due to leave, Carl had some divine inspiration whereby he checked our flights to Mexico out of LA - yes we know you should do this for every flight but seriously who does? We found at that our airline no longer existed and our travel agent had failed to inform us. Anyway, long story short, Carl managed to sort it out. Instead of flying direct to Mexico we had to fly via Dallas; on a positive note we arrived at 6pm instead of midnight.

It was really lovely to see Paul after five years. He has lived in Santa Barbara for nine years and this was the first time I had seen where he lived and what his life is like. We want to say thank you to Paul for paying for some of food and staying at his. A hello goes out to all Paul´s friends and neighbours we met including Aja, Warren, Kate, Phnam, Mardis, John, Ada, Lori, Mike and Maureen. Thanks for making our visit a happy one.

Off to Mexico and our final stop before home!!!!

The crossing wasn't so bad considering the weather; the film 'Wall-e' helped to pass the time (well for Carl anyway) as there was little point taking in the scenery considering the conditions outside.

We arrived in Wellington quite late and the best option for us was a campervan park a few kilometres out of town. Unfortunately, it was like stopping the night on a concrete carpark. Vans parked next to each other on the tarmac with no privacy whatsoever. It was the worst park we have stayed in. The weather that night really came in, so we spent the night being rocked from side to side by the wind while the rain hammered it down on the metal roof. Due to the poor facilities, we decided to see Wellington city in one day (rather than two days as planned). It reminded us of Birmingham by the sea. The leading attraction there is the Te Papa Museum where they had several excellent displays of natural wonders along with a giant 12 foot squid lying in formalahide, ugly is not the word. It put our museums to shame!

Our plan was to head to the East coast first where we visited the Art Deco town of Napier, staying for a few days. Here we met Bob and Sue, a local couple who invited us to stay with them, if we happened to pass through Rotorua. Napier didn't have a great deal to offer but there was an interesting tannery and an old prison, where we took tours. Living it up aren't we!! Well, you can't do much on 40 pounds a day all in.

Napier prison

Our next stop was Lake Taupo, the largest fresh water lake in the North island. We spent 3 nights here and on the driest day, we managed to see 'The Craters of the Moon' (a thermal area with mud pools and fumeroles) and we also did a spot of sailing. Our boat for the day was 'The Barbury', an old Swedish yacht apparently once owned by Errol Flynn! It was great to get a bit of sailing in, even though we had a race back to beat the weather. On board, we met a crazy (in a good way) South African couple -Tracy and Lucy- who kindly cooked us dinner that night back at their accommodation. On one particularly cold day, we headed to the thermal hot pools located at our campside to try and defrost in 40 degree temperatures. Whilst we were bathing, we met another couple, Brendan and Sally, who invited us to to stay with them in Kati Kati.

Fire breathing Sarah

Captain Carl

As our next stop was Rotorua, we decided to take up Bob and Sue's kind offer. We had a lovely couple of days even managing to cook a full roast (yup with yorkshire puds too) for our hosts. It was great to do some 'proper' cooking and spend a night in a warm bed! We didn't go into the touristy town of Rotorua itself but instead took advice of the locals and visited free attractions in the surrounding area.

Us with Bob and Sue

After saying our goodbyes, we made our way to Mount Manuganui and spent three days battening down the hatches, wishing we were in a bigger van! We did have one nice day, the afternoon we arrived, which we spent doing our washing, turning 'Percy' into a portable washing line. We also indulged in a rare outside picnic in the sun which was interrupted for almost an hour by a man who told us about his conspiracy theories and the ending of the world. Nevertheless, the spot was beautiful as we were parked up literally 50 metres from the beach which on one side was flagged by the Mount.

Chinese laundry

After being beaten by the weather, we packed up and moved onto Kati Kati. It wasn't a place we had intended to visit, other than to pass through, but on the back of Brendan and Sally's offer, we turned up on their doorstep. Their home was easy to find - the only church/rectory in the village which was a good job as we had no contact details for them. Our first night with the Gibbs family was spent at their friend's home where everyone brings along a dish and helps themselves to a 'Pot Luck' tea. The following night I (Carl) was taught how to surf cast - fishing on the beach - at night! We all managed to catch something; I managed to catch the biggest, but put that down to beginner's luck.

Night time surf cast fishing

Our route through the North Island was dictated by the location and date of our home sit - in the Taranaki district in the East of the island.
After Kati Kati, we headed in an easterly direction stopping at Watimo Caves, Bennydale - visiting the remenants of a sacred Maori site, an unusual cross carved into the Earth, and then onto Mananui. Here we stayed the night with an english couple, Linda and Andy who were introduced to us by my mom! We had never met them before and like all our encounters in NZ, we just turned up on the doorstep and were welcomed in. People are so friendly and helpful here!

Sarah and Linda

We first decided about the prospect of house sitting back in Bali. It is one way to stay in a country for not much money. New Zealand was a bit of a financial shock especially after Asia, so being able to do this really helped us out. If we had not done house sitting, we would have definately left New Zealand earlier than planned.

We arrived at our house sit having only spoken to the owners once, so with a lot of trust on both sides, and a contract in place, the owners of the house (34 acres and 3 dogs) left for a holiday in Ubud, Bali - our previous destination before NZ!!! We spent our time getting ourselves straight, ready for the next leg of our journey. We also used the opportunity to do a bit of 'housekeeping' such as write CVs and starting to get our head round coming home. We, of course, also had house duties to perform in return for the free rent. After our 3 week house sit, we spent a couple of non eventful days in Auckland.

Us with Lorri, Bruce, Polly, Frodo and Flynn at our house sit

New Zealand is a beautiful place where you can just escape from everything. We can understand why people love the country so much, but for us, it wasn't dynamic enough and culturally felt too much like home.

So here we are halfway around the world back in a Western country after spending six fantastic months in Asia.

How have we found it?

Well our entrance to New Zealand was a painful two hours, getting through customs. This was due to us ticking 'yes' to every possible box on the immigration form (as all applied to us!). After leaving the airport, we were welcomed by typical British winter weather - cold, windy AND raining! We were freeeezzzziiinnggg especially Carl who was wearing shorts.

Long before we arrived here, we decided to fly into the South Island first as it would be the colder of the two. After spending six months in the sun, we thought it would be better to visit the coldest area to start with and then head towards the warmer weather of the North Island.

We spent our first five days in Christchurch as a guest of Vicky's, who we had met one night in Surat Thani, Thailand. It gave us the opportunity to save a bit of money as well as get all our washing done and accustomise ourselves to the 'Western' world again. We decided to have a look at our campervan before we were due to pick it up in two days time. However, we discovered that the campervan depot had recently been burnt down, so we weren't sure whether or not we would have any transport. Luckily, only a few vans were destroyed so all was good. We were able to pick one of the best of the vans in the depot. Our recce also informed us of what we needed to buy to make life comfortable (blankets, hot water bottles etc).

Two days later we were on our roadtrip - 'Wicked'. Our first stop was Lake Tekapo. It was truly beautiful and reminded us of the glacial lakes in Everest. It was really cold so we stopped in a hostel for the night instead of sleeping in the van. We were due to go on a night observatory trip to Mount John but it was cancelled due to cloudy skies. Instead we had a lovely evening at the hostel speaking to a fellow traveller, Graeme about Freemasonry (he was a former freemason) and spiritual subjects.

Pimpin Percy

View from Mt John observatory

The following day was a seven hour drive to Dunedin, where we spent a couple of days. It was Cadbury Week there so we ended up stuffing ourselves with free chocolates (can you believe we travel halfway round the world only to find a Cadbury's factory!). We attended their biggest event which is the Jaffa Race held on the steepest street in the world with a gradient of 1:236. They essentially roll numbered chocolate balls down the hill, two races, 25,000 jaffa chocolates in each. Each number referred to a raffle ticket which we could have done with winning as it was $1000 of food and petrol - no such luck.

25,000 Cadbury Jaffas

Just outside of Dundedin is Otago Peninsula. We spent a day driving around this area and spent our time doing free activities which involved trying to see albatrosses and walking with seals on seal beach, although getting too close isn't advised!

Seal on the beach

Our next stop was Te Anau where we had our first experience camping in Percy (yes, we named our van!). We stayed at a really good campsite which made the experience pleasant enough - right next to lake where the backdrop was a stunning mountain range. We were glad of our hot water bottles, as it was a cold night. From here, we organised a kayaking trip to Milford Sound which is a fjord about an hour south of the town. The weather was cold and wet (everytime we seem to be on the water it rains!) but our experience was made magical by sharing our time with a pod of 40 bottle nose dolphins. We also had a pretty interesting lunch on the fjord where we had to raft up our kayaks in the middle of the water, enjoying our packed lunch whilst we were afloat.

Lunch on the fjord

Kayaking with dolphins

From here, we headed back inland intending to stay in Queenstown but everywhere was fully booked . It tends to be a busy place full of backpackers staying for the duration of the winter season to ski or board so we ended up a few kilometres away in Arrowtown. Again, we had to stay in a hostel as the weather was bitterly cold. Arrowtown is a strange little place which was once a gold mining town, reminisient of the small towns you see in wild west movies - except colder. It had a few boutique shops catering for tourists but prices were ridiculously inflated. It was here we met a lady called Jenny - long story short, she invited us to her home for dinner in the neighbouring town of Wanaka which happened to be our next stop.

The next day we arrived in Wanaka, again it is a place that is set up primarily for snow lovers as there are a couple of ski fields near by and is yet another town on a lake. There was not a great deal to do here unless you want to throw ourself out of a plane or off a bridge - not dissimiliar to most places in NZ. We did, however, take in a film at the locally famous cinema - 'Cinema Paradiso' which is an old fashioned theatre with sofas instead of chairs and an intermission. They baked cookies during the film so they were hot for the interval - they were so so good!!!

One of the evenings, we went to dinner at Jenny's and Russell's. It was so lovely to spend time with locals. We had a scrummy dinner and a sense of normality for a few hours that comes from being in a house. Thanks to Jenny for her kind invitation.

Sarah had her first skiing experience here at a resort called Cardrona. She spent all day on the slopes in pretty bad conditions. Definately not a natural! The scene from Bridget Jones springs to mind. I (Carl) have to say to all those who do ski, it was one of those days where if you looked out of the window before getting on the slopes, you wouldn't have gone. And if you were on the slopes when the weather hit, you would have called it a day, whiteout even on the nursery slopes. An introduction to skiing needs to be done in crystal clear blue skies. Still we managed to get some practice fitting snow chains onto our van.

Skiing lesson in a white out

We then headed over to the West coast where the weather forecasts had been predicting some warmer weather. However, before we got there we stayed at Franz Joseph Glacier which is pretty impressive as the glacier comes down to only 250m above sea level. Unfortunately the best way to see the glacier is from the top and to get there was by a very expensive helicopter ride. We took the cheap option and walked to the face for free!

Waterfall rainbow at Franz Joseph

Hokitika was next and is a place famous for pounamu which is greenstone. Every other shop is a place selling beautifully carved necklaces but with a price tag to match. We experienced something of beauty for free which the locals call a 'Midnight Rainbow'. It was a white arc across the sky caused by the sun's reflection off of the Antartic. It is a rare phenomena as the local who showed us the arc said the last time he had seen the same thing was back in 1944. This arc may have appeared as at the time, four planets were aligning to form a cosmic cross.

The best day to-date in New Zealand was spent in a small slightly weird place of Barrytown. We spent the whole day making our own forged knife from steel and other raw materials. We started by being shown a beautiful knife by Steve (the owner) who said we would all make someting similar. Not having any knife making skills we were all slightly sceptical especially after being shown a rough bit of mild steel, some rough cut timber and a bit of brass! We spent several hours hammering, sanding, glueing, sanding some more and somehow at the end of it all, 11 of us ended up with an amazing knife each as individual as their maker. It was truly a fantastic day.

May the force be with you

WIP

From a few scraps to some shiny blades

Our last stop in the South Island was Nelson where we spent 3 days in the camper before heading to Picton to take a ferry across to the North island. In Nelson, we went out on a few runs which was pretty painful after 9 months of no exercise except yoga. I (Sarah) enjoyed the fantastic craft market which had such a great buzz to it - visitors eating alfresco, beautiful handicrafts and lots of friendly people.

The South Island is the land of rainbows. We have never seen so many of them in such a short space of time. The scenery is stunning and the roads are made for motorbikes. The whole island is unspoilt. The landscape is a mix of Wales, the Lake District, Canada and Scandanavia. The downside is that everywhere looks the same. Most of the towns and hamlets are frozen in time and are like backwater places from the States. If you want peace, this is the country. But there is no balance - nothing happens and there is no dynamism unless you want to spend a fortune doing all the adventure activities.

Apparently, the North island is more engaging but is less beautiful. We shall wait and see after our 4 hour crossing of the Cook Straight, one of the roughest sea crossings in the world.

Bali is an hour ahead of Java which meant once we had arrived, we were looking for a room well past midnight. From our taxi we were seeing the worst Bali had to offer, think Ibiza or Tenerife for Australians with lots of drunk people struggling to stand up. We knew this part of the island (Kuta) was not going to be for us before we got here, but we needed to stay a couple of nights close to the airport to get ourselves sorted. Kuta wasn't much better in the day; it's heartbreaking to see how tourism can destroy a place. We had heard Ubud was a lovely place, full of arts and crafts, so we headed there, meeting a friendly American couple (Christine & Jason) in our cramped mini bus.

Ubud is an artisan town, with welcoming people, accommodation for everyone's budget and even cheap food in the restaurants (known as warungs). What was a little disappointing for us was how overpriced handicrafts are as well as courses (such as yoga, carving etc) especially when compared to Yogyakarta.

We decided to take another road trip (last bike trip was in Laos) instead of going to another island. We made plans to travel around the island in an anti-clockwise direction with both Sarah and I having a bike this time and our new American friends joining us. We headed East towards the coast aiming to get some more snorkelling in before we left the warm weather.

Roadside warung

Our first stop was in a small town Candidasa where we arrived about 3pm after a slow ride from Ubud. We finally found some cheap accommodation (seemingly the only cheap place in town) but turned in early as we wanted to leave first thing in the morning. A nothingness sort of town where we were glad to only be staying for a night. Next stop was Amed, famous for its beaches and snorkelling. On the way, however, we had our first encounter with the police who were pulling every bike over. For some reason they let us off even though we didn't have an international driving licence; apparently a UK issued one isn't good enough! We later found out they never let anyone off without a backhander.

Our road trip companions - Christine and Jason

Beach swing in Jasri

We arrived in Amed after a lovely, if not bumpy ride along the coastal road. We arrived early enough to take a dip in the sea to do a little snorkelling (as this is what Amed if famous for). Unfortunately, the waves were too strong to get out near our hotel so we retreated to a sheltered bay not too far away. We were disappointed with the snorkelling here (especially compared to Thailand and Malaysia) as there was little to see and the black sand reduced the visibility to almost zero.

View from our hotel in Amed

From Amed we said goodbye to Jason and Christine (as they had to get back to Ubud). We carried on North along the coast stopping off in a tiny village, Air Sanih, for the night and spent several hours chatting to the owner of the only restaurant that was open after 8pm.

Our last stop on the North coast was Lovina, a pleasant small town that had enough tourist infrastructure to make life very easy. We should have stayed longer here, one night wasn't enough but we had to move on as we were hoping to swim with dolphins at a nearby hotel! Yup that's right, in a hotel. It's hard to say whether you should support a facility like this, the animals are obviously well looked after but the pools in our opinion were much too small. On a positive note, the dolphins were rescued from a circus after being caught in fishermans nets, but part of you feels they should be released back to their natural habitat.

We had great fun and got much longer than our allotted time. Sarah got to swim first with a male dolphin who spent much of his time underwater not wanting to play. Luckily we got a second session with the dolphins after they performed a show where we both managed to get up close and personal with a playful female. I even managed a kiss with her!!

At last swimming with the dolphins

At last swimming with the dolphins

Flying Dolphins

We headed on from here into the mountains stopping off at the largest Buddhist monastery in Bali based on Borabodur (although much smaller) before a night in the small town of Munduk, where there were some amazing views of the landscape below. Munduk has a special energy to it (and I, Sarah could have stayed here for a few days). We then spent the next day in a wild goose chase trying to find a temple that was going to perform a full moon ceremony. With no success and to escape the monsoon rain, we had to stop the night in a very quiet place, Candi Kunning, where we were the only westerners. Unfortunately the monsoon didn't abait and our ride back to Ubud the following day was pretty unpleasant spending 4 hours riding in torrential rain!!

Photo of us on our road trip

Back in Ubud, we intended to stay for 10 days to try to relax and enjoy the sunshine before the winter in New Zealand was upon us.

We managed to pack in many things during these 10 days. We have come to realise that the longer you spend in a place the more you get out of it. We met some lovely local people, Kadek and his wife Ani who invited us to their home, where for Ani's birthday I cooked a western meal for her family to try. Sarah couldn't make the night as she had started a meditation course that lasted for three days.

Ani's birthday party

We spent a day in Bali Bird park where we had an amazing time. We somehow managed to time our visit perfectly with the shows so got the most out of our day. As you can see from the photos, we were allowed to interact with the animals. The best part of the day was holding the giant lizards and playing with the parrots and other exotic birds.

He ain't heavy he's my lizard

Dancing with a dragon

Eagle swooping for food - no tray

Parrottastic

We did manage to have some spiritual experiences too; a blessing from one of the most highly respected holy men in Bali (he looks like Mr Miyagi), a day in Tirta Empul, a holy spring where you submersed your head under many water fountains whilst praying or asking for a blessing. The water was so soft but freezing. Luckily we managed to go on a really hot day (we didn't have many in Bali) and thanks to some locals who explained the etiquette of the pools, we managed to avoid a faux pax (there were some fountains reserved for cremations, babies and buildings).

After our blessing with the holy man

Sacred spring blessing

Us at Tirta Empul. Yes i am in a sarong

We were sad to leave Bali & South East Asia, - what an amazing time we have had. Let's hope being back in a Western country isn't too much of a shock to the system!!!

By the way, there are many more photos that we have uploaded into the gallery that aren't in the blog. xx