DAY 114 - Yogyakarta, Java, Indonesia

Ubud is a small town inland on Bali that rather fancies itself as an artist colony. That would be stretching it. But the place is a million times nicer that Kuta, which was a bit of an arm pit. Oh, and the restaurant waitresses kept putting flowers behind our ears which back home would count as assault (except you could hardly claim the weapon was lethal - except maybe to your pride).

We've taken to not booking hotels in advance. This has the advantage of being able to negotiate price, but the disadvantage of risking your place of choice being full. In Ubud we came off well. We got in our first choice hotel with 17% knocked off the price. Here in Yogyakarta we had to try three places before finding a room, at an above budget price.

Bali is terrible for being harassed by taxi drivers and shop owners pedalling their wares. You have to learn to shut them out. If you try to be polite and say "no thank you", they take this as your opening gambit in negotiating a price, so we've taken to staying stum.

There's some very nice countryside around the town with very picturesque paddy fields, tiny villages and rolling hillsides. Everyone seems to own a dog: more acurately, a pregnant dog. I don't know where all the boy dogs are as all the canines you can see look like udders on legs.

Saturday we hired a car and driver for the day and took a tour further afield. There were lot of temples, volcanos and pretty villages (to which you could make a donation). Of particular interest was a cave full of bats which the locals worshiped. Despite my respect for their beliefs, I can't really claim to understand the religious significance of it all, but I was surprised that they didn't clean the very large amount of guano off the furniture occasionally.

One of the ways the locals try to squeeze more money out of you is with the Great Sarong Con. The temples, quite reasonably, expect people to dress respectfully when entering. Anyone with shorts on is asked to cover up. The locals however tell people that they must wear a sarong and that they, fortunately, have one available for a "very cheap price". We fell for this once or twice, which was particularly embarrassing as I for one don't look particularly good in a dress. In
one place they were telling tourists they needed a Sarong even though they weren't allowed in the temple! The cads.

On Sunday we flew to Yogyakarta in Java. We were confidently informed (curse you, Lonely Planet!) that we could just turn up at the airport and we would be fighting people off trying to sell us tickets. Wrong! We had to wait 7 hours for a flight at an inflated last-two-tickets price. Bah!

On a darker note, it's becoming increasingly difficult to ignore what's going on back home with the economy going down the pan. I can't ignore the fact that I'm spending money while the rest of the world is saving it. Robert Peston and his blog have become the fifth horseman of the apocalypse. Mostly it's the being isolated from real events, so I can't judge how bad things are or are going to get. For the first time i'm giving up reading the BBC website and The Economist,
otherwise I have no hope in hell of enjoying the rest of this holiday. Any good news would be welcomed. We may have to economise and stay in hotels without flush loos (I'm not giving up air con!)

Rich

DAY 109 - Kuta, Bali, Indonesia

Hi there

Well, back on the 'orse then, as they say.

We arrived in Bali on Monday after a 24 hours of planes and airports.
It both is and isn't what I expected. It's every bit a tacky as you
would expect from an over-developed holiday resort but in many ways
that's quite reassuring. There will never be a world shortage of
tshirts with profanities written on them. On the other hand, I had the
same feelings on arrival I wrote about 5 years ago when I landed in
India for the first time: isolated, tired and like I'd landed on
another planet. The difference this time of course is that I'm not on
my own and those feeling dispersed quite quickly.

The jet lag is pretty bad. The plan for the first night was to get
wrecked due to it being my birthday. Unfortunately after a couple of
beers I could barely avoid slumping my head on the table. I hit my bed
only to wake up at 2 in the morning. Got a few more hours sleep later
but was still zonked in the morning.

Bali is cheap. I mean if you really want to pay £100 plus for a room
there are some international chains who will gladly take your money
off you're hands. Hotel and living costs are probably £15-20 a day per
person. And that's for a good room. You could do it much cheaper if
you wanted too. This is apparently the off season. It's hot, sunny,
dry and full of people. I shudder to think what high season is like.

Definitely in backpacker territory here. Everyone wants to speak to
you; the street hawkers shout at you relentlessly as you walk past
(no, I don't want a flight to Aceh - it's a war zone); lone tourists
try to start up a conversation with you (yes, you have been to more
countries than me and no, I don't care) and then there are the ladies
of the night who stare at you continuously and without blinking
(because it would just be rude for them to start the conversation and
besides, it's your job to buy the drinks). One waitress even had the
cheek to ask for a tip (the food was overpriced and we're on a budget).

Met a writer called Brian Thacker Tuesday night. Amazon describe his
book as a smutty but amusing travelogue. He gatecrashed our table
apparently looking for material for his new book, so I told him my
story of the poo throwers of Delhi. He seemed reasonably impressed.

Rich

DAY 104 - Orpington, UK

Hello there.

 

It's been quite a few weeks. I suspect you've been wondering where i've been, haven't you? After Japan we few to Sydney and had a few days of sight-seeing, eating, drinking and general normality. Then on the Monday morning we got a call from home that a close relative had passed away. By the middle of the afternoon we were on a plane back to London. We couldn't have been further away if we'd tried.

 

Being stuck at home for the last few weeks hasn't been particularly fun, what with blanket coverage of near-miss financial Armageddon all over the TV and radio, and the histrionics of impending recession in the papers. Even Terry Wogan's been at it. To cap it all off, last week I developed a nasty reaction to the Lariam anti-malarials i've been taking. I'd been joking about all the stories of it sending you mad for months, but i'm not laughing any more. Suffice to say, i'm off it now and the worst seems to be over. (For the record, it didn't make me loopy. No more so than usual, anyway.)

 

On the bright side, Harlequins have had a fantastic start to the season and the new Keane album is quite good...

 

Anyway, looks like we'll be off travelling again on Sunday, so i should be able to spend at least some of my birthday on Monday on the beach in Bali. The rest of Australia has had to be scrapped, but i'm sure I'll do it again some time in the future.

 

Rich

 

PS: Don't forget to write (particularly from work!)

PPS: www.energiser.net

DAY 87 - Orpington, UK

Travel suspended.

Normal service will resume in a few weeks.