Back home at last after the 3 month trip, it’s been great but it is nice to be in our own place after living out of a rucksack all Summer.
There have been many highlights on the trip which I’m sure we’ll remember for a long time.
Thanks for reading & hope you enjoyed the blog!
Caught a flight of just under 5 hours to Hong Kong with Cathay Pacific, I think this was probably the best airline we used on the trip with a great entertainment system and nice food (for an airline).
We took a taxi to our centrally located hotel and got up early the next morning to try and fit as much as we could of the city into one day.
The first thing we noticed is how busy it was, if you don’t like crowds then it’s not the place to be! It was also very hot and sticky.
The city has good transport though and we took the underground to Hong Kong island from where we were staying in Kowloon. We took in a quick visit to Victoria Park where we could see many people of all ages doing their morning Tai Chi sessions, I guess you need to have a calm and relaxed mind to cope with living in such a hectic place.
Our next stop was ‘The Peak’, a hill with great if a little hazy views over Hong Kong harbour. To reach this you take a very steep tram up the side of the hill (see website http://www.thepeak.com.hk/en/home.asp).
After this we headed back into the central district and browsed some of the many interesting shops there with many specialising in antiques. We also popped into the Man Mo temple with its gold statues and burning incence.
We then planned to visit a new cable car ride on Lantau Island that takes you up to a monastary but when we got there on the underground we found it was closed for maintenance… never mind, we returned to the main city and visited a huge shopping mall in the centre and some of the smaller shops outside, it’s a great city for the shopaholic.
It was starting to get towards dusk so we headed down to the ferry which took us back to Kowloon for the equivalent of 20p, a bargain! We tried to get into the famous Peninsula Hotel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Peninsula_Hong_Kong)
for a quick cocktail but unfortunately we weren’t smartly dressed enough so didn’t make it.
We made our way to the harbour where crowds gathered for the nightly ‘Symphony of Lights’ where the buidlings across on Hong Kong island light up with a musical light and laser show.
A bit of fun on our last day in Bali and a trip to Waterbom Park, a big water park near Seminyak where we are staying. Plenty of water slides, pools and other rides was a good way to spend the day.
Afterwards we went to a big shopping mall opposite which even had a Boots and Marks and Spencers.
The trip to Bali and Lombok has been enjoyable, think we prefered Lombok as it was more of an adventure, Bali had some nice scenery but we weren’t too keen on some resorts which were a bit too touristy but both islands are worth visiting.
Have added lots of photos for previous days – look back through the blog to see them!
Yesterday we went on another snorkelling trip, this time by boat. We stopped off at several spots and snorkelled seeing a lot of fish, coral and some huge sea turtles. We stopped off on another of the Gili Islands called Gili Air.
In the evening we visited the turtle sanctuary they have on the island and paid to set one of the turtles free, watching it disappear into the sea.
Today we returned to Seminyak on Bali, this time we caught a propeller plane from the capital on Lombok for a short 30 minute flight back which gave us some good views of the islands coastline.
Today we spent some of the day relaxing on the beach soaking up the sun and snorkelling in the crystal clear water, the snorkelling was very good and I saw many types of fish and colourful coral. Ana spotted a large turtle swimming along and coming up to breathe.
The beaches have a lot of dead coral on them looking like piles of bones.
The island is very flat and we walked around it in about 1.5 hours this afternoon along the beach. Tomorrow we may go on a boat trip to the other 2 islands.
We will try to put some pics sometime soon.
We left Senggigi yesterday for an eventful bus journey to the port on Lombok. The first incident was when the bus hit some overhead power lines which were hanging too low and tore the whole line off. We stopped and the driver had some discussions with local villagers who must have sorted out what to do before we continued. Our next unscheduled stop was on one of the many steep hills on the coastal road where the bus engine overheated, we stopped for some emergency repairs and carried on for a bit till it broke down again, finally it was fixed and we rolled into the town near the port.
Our next transport was a horse and cart vehicle called a cidomo which took us to the port, we felt sorry for the poor horse pulling us and all our luggage.
From the port we took a boat for the short crossing to Gili Meno, one of the three Gili islands, small coral fringed islands with beautiful beaches.
Everybody is still struggling after the volcano trek hobbling around with very painful legs which is funny to see.
This website tells you about the islands whose main trade used to be coconuts but now tourism is the main source of income though they are still fairly undeveloped:
Yesterday we started the most exciting and for some people the most dreaded part of the tour, the 9km trek up mount Rinjani from our base at 600m to 2600m. We were trekking to the volcano rim, the summit of Rinjani itself at 3700m is closed due to danger from volcanic activity at the moment and the crater rim has only just been re-opened.
We started out at 7am for a short drive up to the trekking centre where our porters took our tents and sleeping bags, food and other kit and we started off walking.
The first few sections of walk were through forest and had steep sections, despite being in the shade it was still very hot and sticky so we were all soaking in sweat. People walked at their own pace so we arrived at each stop at different times.
Our porters prepared lunch and we continued the ascent which by now was getting very steep and tougher. The final two sections were very steep scrambles up through dust and rocks, very slippy and exhausting. At least at one of the stops we had some relief by a group of monkeys up to their tricks nearby.
We finally reached our camp near the crater rim at around 5pm after about 7 hours hard climb. Luckily it was overcast for some of the day which helped a little. Everybody was exhausted by the time we arrived, have never sweated as much as this before.
We climbed up to the volcano rim for amazing views, it is actually a rim of an old volcano with a huge crater 6km in diameter which now has a very deep lake in it.
In the centre of the lake is a new volcano which began erupting only 200 years ago and started erupting again around 3 months ago and is currently very active, we could see the smoke coming out of it.
The sunset was well worth seeing too and we could see all the way to the Gili islands where we are going later in the trip.
As we were camping near the rim we got to see it at night and got great views of it spewing red hot lava from its summit and lava flowing down into the lake. We also had a great view of the stars which were amazing without any light pollution to ruin the view.
Camping wasn’t the most comfortable so we didn’t get much sleep, it was very cold too and the tents were on a bit of a slope so kept rolling down to the bottom the tent! Luckily the porters cooked all the food and set up camp so that helped.
The trek back down was probably even more difficult as we were all tired so a lot of people took the odd tumble or two, especially on the first steep section but we all made it up and down in one piece and were able to make the drive to our next stop of Senggigi, the main tourist town in Lombok on the coast.
We must mention the porters who showed an incredible level of fitness carrying huge loads up and down the mountain very quickly, cooking all the food, setting up camp, don’t know how they did it, even more as it is currently ramadan so a lot of them couldn’t eat or drink during daylight hours.
Here is a link to a picture of the volcano with the new cone emerging from the lake.
http://skorookolo.szm.sk/in/images/Gunung%20Rinjani%20crater%20(Lombok).JPG
On Sunday we went on a guided walk around the Senaru area, our guide was one of the women from a local village who has learnt English and been trained as a tour guide.
We stopped off at a few traditional villages on the way with their straw huts. The villagers practice a form of Islam different from muslims and includes teenage girls having their top teeth filed down so they are in a straight line as it is supposed to be more beautiful.
We walked through the rice paddies and tried several tropical fruits from the trees and saw cashew nuts and tried some chocolate fruit which was very nice but not like the chocolate bars we are used to.
A highlight of the walk was going through the jungle to a couple of beautiful waterfalls and having a cooling swim in one of them.
A hot but enjoyable day.
We left Bali and took a car ferry across to Lombok, the journey took about 4.5 hours and was fairly smooth as it was a large ferry. On our arrival at the port of Lembar we were immediately surrounded by people trying to sell us all sorts of stuff and trying to carry our luggage for us, you have to get used to this over here!
We then went on bus via the capital of Lombok, Matram, to the northern town of Senalu near the base of the volcano Rinjani.
Lombok is more rugged and volcanic than Bali and less developed, it is more exciting for travelling through. Tourism in Bali and Lombok has been badly affected by the 2002 bombings which killed over 200 and is slowly getting back to its feet after this. Many resorts in Lombok have suffered as a result of this. The people of Lombok are predominately muslim.
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