Bali

Ah it feels nice to be back in Asia! Despite how touristy Bali can be, it is still wonderfully cheap after our travels in New Zealand.  We can live like kings again with lovely Bali-style guesthouses, platters of nasi lemak, and five dollar massages.  Every day is "Treat Yourself" day here.

 After a long day of travel from Auckland, we arrived late to Bali and decided it was best to stay the night somewhere close to the airport.  We ended up staying in Kuta which has been described by some as a "tourist hell-hole" but it had its perks.  If you can manage to ignore the various touts and motorbikes racing through the winding streets, you might enjoy the well-priced souveneir-shopping, the tasty mie goreng, and the relaxing Balinese massages.  The locals are actually really friendly too and their culture is quite fascinating.  We loved seeing the daily offerings being placed throughout the streets and with the constant burning of incense, Bali does tend to smell a lot better than many other Asian destinations!

On our first day in town, we hit the beach and were surprised to find that the beach is not quite what we expected.  In our minds we had pictured Bali as some sort of island paradise with impeccable white sand beaches leading out to a beautiful ocean that you might splash around lazily in.  Although the beach here is great for surfing, it can be quite dangerous to swim in and is not quite as picturesque as we imagined.  Who knew?

Nasi Lemak

Kuta Beach

On our second day we headed for Ubud, the cultural center of Bali.  Still quite touristy, but also very enjoyable especially once you walk a bit out of town into the beautiful green rice fields. We stayed at a homestay called Rumah Roda off a quiet street and were able to enjoy a typical Balinese dinner buffet prepared by the family.  In fact, all of the food that we tried in Ubud was great but the best meal was probably the babi guling (suckling pig).  We went for lunch one day at Ibu Oka where they bring in two pigs daily for lunch and carve them up at the front of the restaurant for you.  At other restaurants, you have to order this meal a day in advance but Ibu Oka is packed every lunch hour and after tasting some of their pork, you can see why.  I can't really describe how good it is, but I can say that we ended up going back the next day as well. 

Second pig of the day has arrived...
Its head was promptly chopped off

One night we decided to go to a Balinese dance show at the Ubud Palace.  It was a great show and we really enjoyed watching the dancers somewhat jerky movements and constant shifting of their eyes. 

Yoga is really big in Ubud as well so I managed to join some yoga classes in a studio overlooking the rice fields.  It doesn't get much better than that, unless you follow up your yoga with a nice massage at one of the many spas around town.

After Ubud, we made our way to the East coast to catch a boat to the Gili Islands in Lombok.  We decided to stay on Gili Air which we really enjoyed.  You can walk around the island in about an hour and it has a nice relaxed feel to it with no cars or motorbikes.  When you are walking around the middle of the island, you really feel like you are in an exotic place walking by cows, chickens, and local rural life while hearing the call to prayer throughout the day.  We also did a day trip to Gili Meno which was even more relaxed and had a great beach to laze on.

Cows grazing outside our bungalow

The beach on Gili Meno

After the Gilis, we chartered a private boat to Nusa Lembongan.  No, this was not a luxurious experience, and yes, we are happy that we made it there alive.  Luckily the sea was calm and we had no issues arriving to the island in our tiny boat.  After trying unsuccessfully to shake off a persistent tout, we found a nice place to stay with a great view of the ocean.  The main industry on Lembongan is harvesting seaweed which made for some interesting sights around town.  You can watch the locals bringing in seaweed from the ocean and drying it all around the streets before it is exported. 

Our boat was the yellow and blue one...

Ocean View 

Devil's Tears

We spent our last night back in Kuta before catching our flight to Chiang Mai.  You'll have another post from us soon!

New Zealand.

Brace yourselves, this will be a long one. We have just finished spending three weeks travelling around New Zealand in probably the best van that has ever been.  She is called the Peacock and she is glorious.

We flew into Christchurch and spent a couple of days preparing ourselves to drive for the first time on the other side of the road.  It was hard to understand the severity of the earthquakes before seeing the city with our own eyes and learning that there is still a long way to go to repair the city.  It was quite interesting though and the city has taken an innovative approach to keep businesses open in the meantime.  In the former site of a shopping mall, we found colourful trailers arranged as a new interim shopping center.

Once we were granted the Peacock, we started driving south and visited Lake Tekapo and the Moeraki boulders.  Further south, we found some penguins along the shore near Curio Bay.  This is definitely the furthest south we have been thus far in our travels!

The rarest penguin in the world - The Yellow Eyed Penguin

The rumors are all true.

After a quick stop in Dunedin (home to the steepest street in the world), we made our way to the beautiful Milford Sound.  It was raining but still incredible to see, although you can't seem to stand still for very long as the sand flies are quite ferocious in these areas.

Our next stop was adrenaline-filled Queenstown.  It is such a picturesque spot and we were happy to see some snow-capped mountains surrounding the lake.

One of my personal favourite stops was Wanaka - the home of Cinema Paradiso.  Not only were they playing The Hunger Games (awesome), but they were playing it in the coolest theatre I have ever been in.  The seats varied from love seats, to La-Z-Boys, to a classic convertible, and even to some old airplane seats. Plus they served home-made ice cream during the film's intermission - yes, that's right, it even had an intermission.

Nature...That's why we come here!

Although I would have liked to stick around for another film or two, we moved on to the West coast of the South Island.  Here we visited the Franz Josef glacier, and the pancake rocks.  Next, we visited Abel Tasman national park for some coastal walks before making our way to Nelson for the weekend market.

Split Apple Rock in Abel Tasman park

Market in Nelson

Following Nelson, we drove back down the East coast to the Kaikoura peninsula where we spent some time walking alongside baby seals splashing around in the river.  Extremely cute. The only downside of our time in this area is the fact that we stayed at probably the worst-smelling campsite in the whole country.

Awesome roadside seafood bbq in Kaikoura

We ended our time on the South Island doing one of our favourite things: drinking wine. We spent a day and a half visiting a number of wineries around Marlborough and drinking some delicious Sauvignon Blanc (and Pinot Gris, and Riesling, and...etc.)

Onto the North Island: We took the ferry into Wellington and although we did not have much time in this wonderfully windy city, we enjoyed visiting the Te Papa museum and taking a stroll past the Beehive Parliament building.

From there we headed to Lake Taupo and Rotorua to enjoy the lovely aromatic smells that abound in this highly active geothermal area.  We enjoyed relaxing in some hot springs, visiting various waterfalls, and mudpools during our time here.  However, I would have to say the highlight was zorbing - rolling down hills in a large plastic ball filled with water.

Next we drove to the Waitomo area to feast our eyes on some glow worms.  We couldn't decide what we enjoyed more: fireflies in Malaysia or glow worms in the caves.  They were both amazing.

Huka Falls

We spent one night in Raglan, a cute little surf town with some excellent fish n chips, before driving to the Coromandel peninsula to see Cathedral Cove and Hot Water Beach.  Hot water beach has two hot springs underneath the sand that can be enjoyed at low tide by digging yourself a personal little hot tub in the sand. Although we were surprisingly unsuccessful in digging our own little spa, a few locals took pity on us foreigners and invited us to share theirs with us.

We are now in Auckland for a couple of nights before setting off to Bali. For a country that is 1600 km long, we managed to cover 4800 km in the van exploring the country. We were sad to say goodbye to the Peacock but are also looking forward to a change of pace on the beach!