Bali - Indonesia

Jimbaran is a fishing village and tourist resort area, and you can have your fresh seafood served in one of the many beach shack restaurants on the Bay, choosing your fish or lobster straight out of the salt water display holding tanks.

Jimbaran Hills Resort

We own one week timeshare in a two bedroom apartment at the Jimbaran Hills Resort and another week at a studio apartment at Club Oasis Jimbaran Hills in Bali.

Club Oasis, Jimbaran Hills

Both are in the same complex and there are lots of in-house facilities. There are 3 swimming pools, one with a 66m waterslide, a couple of bars and restaurants as well as an authentic style Irish Pub! The resort is not on the beach, but not far from it.

We took lots of tours from Jimbaran.

Kintamani is where you can see the Batur Mountain active volcano and Lake of Batur and look out over its surrounding panoramic valley.

On the way there you can visit the silversmiths and batik makers shops and factories.

Ubud, known for its beautiful art and craft, furniture and wood and stone carving, is about 35km from the Bali airport. At around 200-300m above sea level it is a lot cooler than other parts of Bali and also very quiet as its away from the maddening crowds of the touristy beach areas and only surrounded by rice fields and local village life. You can stroll around the streets all day looking.

Uluwatu Temple (Pura Uluwatu) is set on top of a steep cliff 70m above the ocean with steep headlands on either side. The location is pretty amazing. Before entering the temle grounds, you should be kind and respectful enough of the beliefs of the people and be properly dressed. You can rent sarongs and sashes at the entrance. There are a lot of monkeys living in the temple and its grounds who are quite the professional theives! One stole my hairclip and then proceeded to chew it up ... ouch .. bet he didn't enjoy it some much when it came out the other end! They will pinch anything they can get and will run and snatch. I was told to take off my glasses (thank goodness) because they nick those too. If you want to get something back, if it hasn't been chewed up, you are best offering locals or the temple priests a tip rather than trying to swap fruit with the monkeys for your stolen goods as it just encourages the little ratbags to take more stuff for the rewards. They can get really cheeky.

The 2 hectare Elephant Safari Park in Taro opened in 2000 has beautiful landscaped gardens and is surrounded by National Forest. You can take a ride on the elephants and then seem them take a relaxing and cooling bath in the park lake. You are allowed to hand feed them and touch them and there are so many photo opportunities. The elephants are very intelligent and actually paint … just watch them and then look at the displays of their paintings! This park is very well administered and meets the standards of International Zoo authorities. All the elephants at Taro have been rescued areas of deforestation in Central & Southern Sumatra. There is a gift shop, kiosks and restaurants and also a museum. It is a very worthwhile tour and you really get some amazing photos.

We also stayed a week at the Royal Bali Beach Club at Jimbaran Bay.
This resort has only 16 beautiful apartments and is in the quiet boutique style with one small pool and a bar. You can have a traditional oil massage in your room, which is a lot more relaxing than on a beach or poolside chair. The resort is adjacent to Jimbaran Bay and the beach and about 15 mins from Kuta or Nusa Dua. Directly across the road are the luxurious Intercontinental Hotel and the Four Seasons Resort (among the world's finest hotels). There are so many things to do at Jimbaran Bay. You can shop til you drop, eat until you can eat no more and you can do it cheaply, or conversely, get high quality expensive goods and services if you like.

India 2005 - Mumbai and Goa

We visited India in September 2005 and arrived in Mumbai which was partly inundated with water due to the effects of the monsoon season which was just ending. That was interesting. Life just goes on around it all.

At the end of the runway of the International Airport, there is a slum shanty, which is clearly recognisable from all of the blue tarpaulins draped over bits of tin and wood. Apparently about 30,000 people live amongst this on a permanent basis.

We did not have long in Mumbai, we stayed at Juhu Beach just 10 mins from the airport and did a whirlwind tour of Mumbai on the way to the airport the next morning.



Goa Airport, Dabolim.

We flew up to Goa which has a past ruled by the Portuguese making it a totally different environment to other parts of India.

The Aguada Fortress in Candolim, Goa was built in 1612 to give safe berth to Portuguese ships entering the harbour.










The tourist season in Goa was just beginning there after the monsoon and the people were very busy building the temporary beach shacks and party bars Goa is famous for. English and other European tourists flock there during the high season for the huge beach parties and the fact that it is very cheap to stay in Goa, especially for backpackers.




Building the new season's beach shack for Mike's Place restaurant and beach parties.



Auto Rickshaws, Margao, Goa.







Rice paddies and buffalo along the roadside.

The grounds of the hotel Royal Goan Beach Club Haathi Mahaal were impeccable.
The exterior and interior had masses of marble and timber and lots of statues. There were always fresh flowers on display in the foyer.



A dried leaf painted for a greeting card.

Our timeshare exchange was a fully self-contained 2 bedroom apartment and was very comfortable. There are two swimming pools, an English Pub, two restaurants and a swim up bar with waterslide for the kids all on site. We were not far from the River Sal where you can take boat trips and go fishing. There is an island in the middle which houses a large colony of fruit bats and many other birds and eagles.





The Club had nightly entertainment and one of the most interesting features was a young man named Rahul Alvares, who left school at 16 and wrote a book about his travels, following his instincts and love of reptiles. He is a little like Goa's Steve Irwin. He collects snakes, spiders amongst other animals and carries them around in a pouch on the back of his motorbike to the hotels to teach tourists a little bit about Goa's native animals, most importantly, snakes and spiders. He has since written other books and wants to curb people's hysteria and fear of snakes and is revered amongst his peers.





"Casa Lisboa" restaurant

The restaurant had an interesting light fitting. Fish frozen into a bucket of water to make a feature and then adding a light globe! But, they served yummy Indian and Goan style cuisine with wonderful service.

A building site across from our hotel in Goa.
No Workplace Health & Safety here ... no shoes .. no hardhats .. no scaffolding ... no worries!

Market at Cavelossim.

There are markets all over Goa and particularly near the beaches. They sell clothing, jewellery, Indian cotton craft and habadashery as well as the usual touristy rubbish. You could although get some wonderful carvings and photographs of the locals came at only a small price!

A Lomani woman hawking jewellery on Anjuna Beach and another at Cavelossim Beach, Goa.




Bananas and tropical fruits, Papaya, custard apples, limes and lemons on a streetside stall in Benaulim, Goa.

Indian elephant at Bondla Widlife Sanctuary.

Goa's position and beaches on the Indian Ocean make fishing a major livelihood. The colourful boats and nets are very eyecatching but very important to the village.




Village Life ...


A beautiful display of culture and dancing at one of the restaurants. I particularly love the jewellery and vibrant colours and movement of the saris.

Goa was very safe, fun and interesting. If we had the chance we would visit again.

New Zealand 2003 - North Island

For this one week trip in 2003 we hired a campervan and drove around the North Island of New Zealand, starting in Auckland and ending in Wellington. New Zealand is a very actively volcanic group of islands.
A special highlight was visiting the town of Wakatane where we caught a boat, the PeeJay, out to Waakari / White Island, currently New Zealand's most active volcano.

It is is a stratovolcano with an elevation of 321m and is located 48km offshore in the Bay of Plenty.

The volcano has lava eruptions and phreatic explosions or eruptions which involving the island's ground water interacting with magma.

Smelly, hot and steamy sulphur gases are always spewing from the craters and fumaroles on the island and can be dangerous and unpredictable, so as required, we donned gas masks and signed all of the waivers and then walked around and explored with a very informative guide.



The water level in the lake has been rising and the guide was indicating this may one day form part of a phreatic explosion. The last big blow up and eruption was around 2001. The colour of the water is amazing like a green mineral.
A fumarole is an opening in the earth around the volcano and you can clearly see all the steam and gases spewing out of them.

Atmospheric gases initially come from the earth's interior. Gases within magma are dissolved because of high pressures beneath the earth's surface, but reduced pressure at the surface allows dissolved gases to expand and escape. 70 to 95 percent of all eruption gases are water vapour which is beneficial, adding to the earth's water supply.

Other gases emitted are carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide and traces of nitrogen, hydrogen, carbon monoxide, sulphur, argon, chlorine and fluorine. These gases do good and bad with their complex re-inventions.

Sulphur dioxide emitted by volcanoes can help cool the earth's surface as the gases are converted by the sun's rays reacting with water vapour, forming acid rain and sulphuric acid aerosols (volcanic ash).

The aerosols reflect the sun's rays, having a cooling effect and they remain in the air long after solid ash particles have come back to the ground, but also contribute to global warming by in turn giving off carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, adding to the greenhouse effect. These gases, in particular, sulphur dioxide, are said to have the greatest impact on Earth's short-term weather patterns or long-term climate change. Every time there is an eruption rich in sulphur dioxide, the aeorosol layer is replenished. Emissions of the volcanic ash aerosol and sulphur dioxide may cause an impact on air traffic and eruption monitoring is peformed via satellite based instruments to assist in planning air line routes if gas emmissions exceed an acceptable limit.

The carbon dioxide behaves like a glass shield over the Earth. The sun's rays can penetrate the carbon dioxide gas but the carbon dioxide shield stops heat from escaping. Volcanoes contribute around 110 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year via their eruptions and activity. Man then is worse - his contribution is about 10 billion tonnes per year!




There was a sulphur mining plant on the island until closed down in 1914 after a crater collapsed and the lahar killed 10 of the plant's workers.








The waters around the island are understandably warmer than normal and the sea life is thriving. The boat had an underwater camera giving us a different view of the island with very healthy waters housing kelp beds and schools of fish and many seals bask on the warm rocks during the day.

We also visited Rotorua and its 'boiling mud' sulphur pools at Waiora Spa, Hell's Gate, New Zealand's most active thermal reserve.








Our travels also included visits to the Waitomo Caves, where you can see the amazing glow worms, a jet boat ride at Huka Falls and the City of Auckland. We saw the Kea birds and the New Zealand Kiwi, a nocturnal and very endangered native bird. We visited the Auckland aquarium and watched penguins playing about there.



The scenery is amazing on the North Island and supposedly not as pretty as the South Island, so maybe that's another visit at another time. Hiking or 'tramping' is one of the favourite pastimes in New Zealand and campervan trips are another popular NZ habit.

Bintan, Indonesia 2007

Bintan Lagoon Resort Pool and Main Building

Bintan Lagoon Resort is a fast speed ferry ride, about an hour, from Singapore. The Resort overlooks the China Sea and is in the Riau chain of islands of Indonesia. You go through Customs and Immigration and you can buy duty free. We added this trip to our Singapore holiday, where we were visiting my husband's family.

Bintan Lagoon Resort Beach

Red neck palm trees are beautiful and the gardens are tropical and lush.

Koi carp in the foyer pond.

There are two 18 hole championship golf courses, the Jack Nicklaus Sea View course and Ian Baker-Finch Woodlands course. They are in fantastic condition at all times.

The restaurants are all good quality and there is a shop selling clothes, souvenirs etc. There is also a small grocery store selling basics. There are 12 restaurants and bars in this resort ranging from traditional fare through Japanese, Grills, beach bars, ice cream cafe karaoke and a nightclub. There was always something different on offer in regards to food and beverage here.

The gorgeous staff of the Horizons Bar. Our son played chess here with the staff. They taught him some of the names of the chess pieces in the Bahasa language of Indonesia. CHESS - SKAK. King 'Raja'; Knight (horse) 'Kuda'; Bishop 'Mentri'; Pawn 'Pion'; Queen 'Ratu'. No problem at all they love people talking to them while they work and they must meet so many different nationalities of people.

The resort staff were so very friendly and there are nightly traditional dance performances held in the main reception area of the hotel.

There are lots of water sports and other activities including jet skiing, snorkelling and banana boat rides plus the resort has its own Amusement Arcade, pool tables and Laser Quest Centre.
There are cooking and painting classes also.

Puppet for sale

There are cooking and painting classes also. I painted this in oil which took ages to dry and gave it to our relatives in Singapore.

I also went on a bus and boat trip to the mangroves and saw monkeys and snakes along with beautiful orchids and there were villager's fishing 'houses' set up along the river where they stay and fish for a week and then pack up and go home.

The Kelong is a fisherman's wooden structure built above the sea by driving wooden piles into the seabed and used for commercial fishing. In the past, the Kelong was built permanently for about 6-8 months or during the fishing period. These days, fishermen build the structure on land and drag it by boat to the sea whenever they need it.

Fisherman setting traps

One thing about this place is that the whole island seems to revolve around the many resorts. They are so organised and there are hundreds of activities. Along the way there are flats which are 'staff quarters' where the people who work come for a few months, work, go home for 2 days and then come back again to work.

Bintan was the first place I have been where they checked under the transfer bus with a long handled mirror to look for anything concealed under the bus. I guess that terrorism has well and truly put an end to uncomplicated travel.

Oh well ... don't let things like that ever stop you!!!