Gili Air 
Our last evening on Gili T. we decided to go to a movie. They have a 'theater' where you just have to buy food or a drink and you can watch the movie. It's basically just cushions on the ground, then a projector. I got popcorn (first popcorn since Australia!) and we watched Water For Elephants.

The next day we basically just hung around until our boat was supposed to leave for Gili Air at 4pm. Once we arrived on Gili Air and got a place, we found dinner and that was basically it. The next day we went for a walk around the island. The thought was to possibly go snorkeling somewhere off shore, but we didn't end up picking a spot. It turns out, the 'best' spot is actually in front of the hotel we were staying at. We did snorkel there for a bit. Joe and I just used our swim goggles while Sandra used her own snorkel gear. We didn't bother getting fins. It was neat, but renting gear wasn't really necessary for such a short time. Dinner that night was really good. They had tempe kabobs and tempe 'steak'. Super yummy.

This morning Joe wasn't feeling great, so we had a quick breakfast, then got a pony cart to the harbor in order to catch the boat to Lombok at 8:30am. Once we arrived in Lombok we had to catch a shuttle bus to Senggigi where we will be leaving on a 3 day, 2 night boat trip to the Komodos tomorrow. Sandra found us a nice place to stay that has wifi. Unfortunately it doesn't reach the room, but there's power in the restaurant, so it works out fine. Joe's been trying to sleep this afternoon. He has a fever so we'll be watching him closely. Hopefully it's nothing.

-Miranda


A pony cart.

There are cats all over all the Gilis. This was a kitten that climbed on top of Sandra's bag.

Joe snorkeling.

My view from the cafe where I watched the bags on Gili Air.

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Bali 
We flew to Bali from Kuala Lumpur without incident. Took a cab right away to the Ubud area. This is the town in Bali featured in the recent "Eat, Pray, Love" Movie. (So I hear, I haven't seen it.) All of Bali is covered in Art shops. All of high-level/skilled art. Stone carvings, wood carvings, paintings, all over. We drove 40km and there was a shop within sight of another the whole way. Crazy. Ubud was nice. We met back up with Sandra there. We stayed a couple nights in a fancy hotel with our own garden cottage which opened up to a very artsy swimming pool. We visited the monkey park and enjoyed avoiding the hundreds of naughty monkeys strolling about, some tiny babies as well. The stone-carved temples and statues in this authentic jungle setting were pretty cool. A few times I banged on the statues to make sure they were not foam. ;)

After ubud, we traveled to Pandang Bai. A small coastal town hosting some of the best scuba diving Bali has to offer. Today Miranda completed day one of her intensive 2 day scuba certification classes. (Most people spend 4 days :) go Miranda!) Sandra and I rented a little scooter and tracked down "Hidden beach" and it was well worth the hike. Very Paradisical, with quaint little restaurants right on the beach. (Sat 6ft from high-tide level.) The beach was very quiet.

Every restaurant we look at has several vegetarian options, many have half their menu vegetarian. It's been great fun eating, and It's usually very healthy food. Lots of Gado-Gado (fresh veggies in peanut sauce with rice) for usually $2.25. Fresh, real juices are often for just a bit over $1 (carrot ginger, Banana, mango, all great and 100% fresh fruit made right then.)

Our massive hotel room is on the 3rd floor looking out above most of the village. Between the limited ocean view, the constant colorful kites flying in the sky, and all of the artwork,sculpture and clay-tile rooftops, it's a wonderfully different view :) Accommodation is roughly $36/night including internet and fancy breakfast (banana crepe,coffe/tea and fresh fruit). We were worried Bali would be too touristy, but it has been a very welcome relaxing break. No stress here. Everything is easy and cheap. The Indonesian island retains loads of character, and the people are nice.

-Joe


The front of our "cottage".

The bill for our first dinner in Bali. The big numbers make it very amusing. 8500 = $1

Some of the stone work in front of a temple in the Monkey Forest.

Sandra and me in the temple.

Monkeys!

Our super yummy lunch the day we left Ubud. Notice the wonderful muddy rice parries in the background.

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Kuala Lumpur 
We've been pretty boring since we've been here. Sandra left for Bali two days after we got here. We've been working and walking around a little. We went to Little India a couple times to have lunch and dinner. We found a fully vegetarian restaurant that was excellent.
Yesterday we went to the Batu Caves to check them out. It was pretty neat. We climbed the stairs and ende dup inside a huge cavern. Temples were scattered around and once we got to the end, there were monkeys everywhere. Many of the people were feeding them bananas, etc. Pretty crazy. My camera's battery was dead, so I didn't get any monkey photos.
That evening, when we went to find dinner, I stopped at a shop in the Central Market to get a henna tattoo. My first one. :)

-Miranda


Apparently the largest statue of Lord Murugan. It was definitely huge. See stairs to the left. Those were tall also.

My henna tattoo.

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Photos! 
Well, we made it to Kuala Lumpur today. We also had an amazing hike through the Batand Terraces yesterday. I'll have to write a separate blog for that and post photos of those terraces when I have time, but here are the slightly older photos I promised first. All photos were taken by Sandra (except the first one, because if she had taken it, that would have been an amazing trick. :))

-Miranda


Joe and Sandra before going out scuba diving.

The bus to Bantoc. Yes, those are geese on the roof. (Click to enlarge.)

Rice terraces. (Click to enlarge.)

More rice terraces. (Click to enlarge.)

And yet more rice terraces. (Click to enlarge.)

Joe and me in front of the Banaue rice terraces.

An adorable puppy on the side of the road during our walk back to the hotel.

A panorama of the area. (Click to enlarge.)

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North We Go 
We left the dive resort on Saturday and started our trek north towards the rice terraces. We caught a bus to Manilla, met Melissa (she has done a lot of work for Horse Isle) and spent some time with her at the Mall of Asia. From there we got on a cushy, overnight bus to Baguio. We arrived at 4:30am. From there we had to find the bus that went to Bantoc. Once we arrived at the bus station, we hopped on that bus, which was our first non-air-conditioned, uncomfy bus. There were even geese on the roof! This ride ended up being 5 hours long. We arrived in Bantoc, found lunch and then Joe wandered around looking for a place to stay while Sandra and I used internet at an internet cafe.

The day was mostly spent catching up on sleep and doing some wandering around town. The next morning, we packed up and caught the bus to Banaue. This ride was under 2 hours long, so not too bad. The views are stunning. There are rice terraces everywhere and we're high up in the mountains. Since we had the whole day, we found a hotel for the night and then went back up the hill to the look out for the terraces right next to the town. They are very neat. We've set up a 'tour' for tomorrow with a group of 4 people to help split the cost. We're going to see some other terraces, which includes an hour hike to a view, then another half hour to a waterfall. Hopefully it should be fun.

I don't have any of the photos uploaded to the computer yet. I'll get those posted once I can.

-Miranda

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