Author Archives: John Rose
“You no like, you go to Kuta!”
What’s tired, hungry, miserable and stinks of sulphur? Us on the ferry back to Bali. Karen had done a quick wardrobe change in the back of the van while John waited to use the facilities on the boat – big mistake! John was no longer after this. Getting to Bali by ferry is easy from […]
Ghost Miners
While we were in the Ijen Crater we came into contact with one of the most brutal forms of employment we have seen – The Sulphur Miners of Ijen. The Ijen Crater is one big sulphur mine. Over 300 miners work here. Between the hours of 2am and 4am they descend into the very bowels […]
Mount Bromo
Leaving Yogyakarta was a nightmare. 12 Hours in the back of a car, but it should not have been like this. We had stayed in a luxury hotel as a treat. There was a travel desk that were so helpful in booking onward travel to Malang for us. This was so great because it’s tough […]
This is a Local Stop!
Our hotel organised a free shuttle bus to the nearby temple, so we made avail of it. The local temple just so happened to be both a UNESCO Heritage Site and one of Indonesia’s true gems… Prambanan. We got on the bus and laughed as we were the only 2 people on it. The short […]
Nothing rhymes with Yogyakarta!
As discussed in our previous post, we made our way to the island of Java from Gili Trawangan via Bali. Our flight from Denpasar landed in Yogyakarta at 7.30am and by 8am we had arrived at our hotel and ready to relax. We had booked a nice hotel for a few days as our last […]
Better the Gili you know!!
So in Lombok. We could get a long boat back to Bali or we could do something we had been curious about since we arrived in Indonesia. Gili Trawangan has a pure party label. Some people say it is the ‘Zante’ of Indonesia. Full of young, predominantly Australian 20 Year Olds throwing all caution to […]
Sengiggi-giggity
After over a week of lazing on the beach it was time to return to the mainland, well a larger, busier island, than the Gilis. We had heard good things about Lombok so we were raring to go! To get to Lombok we took the “Local” boat to Bangsal Harbour, in the North of Lombok. […]
Well Two out of Three ain’t Bad!!
After 5 nights on Gili Air we were rewarded with a Level UP for our commitment. That Level Up was Gili Meno. According to Wikitravel, Gili Meno is the “Meat in the sandwich of the three Gili Islands”. Gili Meno, while fast becoming the new exclusive retreat island, is still the best of the three […]
Gilis In The Mist
There are a few ways to get to the Gili Islands. Option 1 is to get a fast speed boat. Option 2 is to waste a whole day on a slow boat to Lombok before getting a public ferry to one of the Gilis. Option 3 is to hire a private speed boat and arrive […]
Côte d’Amed!
Nous avons arrives à Amed avec la plages noire et le tempo clair. L’hotel il s’appelle…. Pardon me. Amed is crawling with so many French tourists that we forgot who we were. Let me try again… We arrived in Amed, with its black sandy beaches and calm tempo. Our Hotel was a room behind a […]
Just a small town girl…
So that is us leaving Kota Kinabalu and about to head to Perth, Australia. Or was it? Like in the TV detective show Colombo (Peter Falk RIP), there was “just one more thing…” We had one more country to visit. Our final Asian country would be Indonesia. The island of Bali is one of the […]
Weekly Photo Challenge: Zigzag
This weeks Photo Challenge was ZigZag. This was a tough one but inspiration eventually came… A tree growing in the Chi Lin Nunnery in Hong Kong is this week’s choice. This place is really awesome if you are ever in Hong Kong. It’s also fairly quiet as you have to travel to get here.
Washout!
On the way back to Kota Kinabalu we stopped outside the UNESCO World Heritage site of Mount Kinabalu (The highest mountain in the Crocker Range) We stayed at the side of the main road just down from the entrance to the mountain. We had flirted with scaling the 4095m summit but with torrential rain all […]
Talk With The Animals – Jungle Cruise
As we alluded to in an earlier post… We had signed up for a 3 Day 2 Night Jungle Safari with a local photographer named Mr Aji. At first glance he is just a normal guy with a jeep,but as the trip progressed he turned into a veritable Dr. Doolittle type, and was the best […]
Dial M for Monkey!!
Borneo is know for more than orang utans, it is also the home of the Proboscis Monkey. The Proboscis Monkey is distinguished by a red nose, which is rather like a clowns nose for the males. It also is significantly larger than normal monkeys with big bellies. In Sepilok there is one place to see […]
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