HELLO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Photos photos everywhere....

Village Cock Fighting in Lombok - a very serious business, this...

Each man brings his cock to be examined at the start of each fight. The cocks are chosen dependent on weight, and size. Whilst this is illegal in Indonesia, a small back-sheesh to the local police, and the fights are allowed to continue without interruption...

Lou and I in our 'traditional' Balinese dress in the wedding at Pa Oka's Homestay

Don't ask...

Whilst we are keen to try all the local cuisine, Lou and I refrained from trying some of this locally made welsh fayre!

Bangkok - revisited

"The gift Bangkok offers me is the assurance that I will never be bored"

Quote - William Warren, the dean of expat authors in Thailand

"Or sober"

Quote - Allaster Finke, after reading William Warren's words.

Travel Advice - INDONESIA

I would advise anyone who asks (and those that don't) to travel to Indonesia if ever they get the chance.
It has something for everyone - the bustling maddness of asian towns; great food; tall mountains; beautiful sunkissed beaches on paradise islands; great nightlife; cheap shopping; and most of all very, very friendly people. Hardly can you wander through a dusty street without a wave and a smile from passers-by, a couple of kids running up to you and calling 'hello mister!' or asking for 'photo?' while raising their hands to their eyes and clicking away on their pretend camera.
Indonesia is one of South East Asia's poorest countries, and (apart from Bali, which is a hindu island), the rest of the archipelago of 17,000 islands are predominently muslim - in fact Indonesia is the largest, most populous muslim nation in the world, and it is impossible to walk anywhere without the sound of the Immam calling to prayer from the mosques at the required times during the day. This means that you often have to choose your accomodation wisely, if you don't wish to be woken up at 5am the morning to the (often very moving, but not at 5 in the morning!) sound of Islamic prayer.

Music is a huge part of Indonesian life - the main form of entertainment for most teen to 30/40 year olds (apart from football!) is sitting down at night with a bottle (or 5!) of arak, and breaking into song, accompanied by a guitar or two. Two things to note here - arak is literally home made alcohol. It is either the reasonably nice tasting (but slightly more expensive) rice wine, or the cheaper palm wine. I cannot really put into words the taste of palm wine, so I will settle on those of a good friend we met out there during our stay, an affable dutch-born french chap, whose command of the english language was excellent - as was his Indonesian. He always described the taste by curling his mustachioed lip and saying 'eet tastes lieke dieluted vomit'... And he was quite right.
The second thing to note is that almost all of the time, the guitars are dreadfully out of tune - and incurably so. If there was any attempt made at correcting the tuning of the guitar, the strings would just slacken some more and maintain their slightly off-key tone. This doesn't stop the entertainment, though - the guitar playing was great, and their knowledge of tunes extensive... Often repeated favorites included 'Leaving on a Jet Plane', 'Let it Be', 'Ob-la-di' (and all manner of other Beatles numbers), 'Every Little Thing's Gonna Be Alright', 'Country Road', and 'Hotel California' interspersed with a few indonesian pop tunes - all sung with great enthusiasm and alot of heart, and making for some great long nights and many sore throats and headaches in the morning!
This is truly a lost art in Europe, and a great shame!!!

Other highlights of Incredible Indonesia:

• Seeing the HUGE (6-7 ft) Komodo Dragons
• Island hopping on Indonesian long boats
• Moped madness around Lombok - meeting the 'friendly' police whose lives are very well supplemented by the money of all who cross their path (unless you are us, of course - see 'Do you speak gobble-dee-gook?' mail from Lou (coming soon!)
• Climbing Mt. Rinjani - 2 days, 3764 ft, sunrise and sunset views over Lombok and Bali
• Bonfires and barbeques on the beach at Nusa Tiga guest house on the incredible Gili Trawangan
• Seeing Cock fighting in a village in Lombok (not as gruesome as you might think!)
• Being invited to a Balinese Hindu wedding

So, Indonesia provided us with some great times, wonderful memories, and funny stories... And we shall definately be going again!!!