Better late than never??

8/9/2011

Current location: Desert's point on Lombok off of Bali. Been here since Saturday arvo (that's afternoon in Australian slang). Not sure when we are leaving. Either tonight or in the morning. My flight from Denpasar to Cairns, Australia is tomorrow night. I have had Bali belly since Friday and it's Tuesday. Rough. not sure when I will be able to post this. Maybe not until I get to Australia. I was using wifi on Saturday morning before we left the Gili Trawangan and the whole island lost power. Ridiculous. Pretty bad timing since I was leaving to come to such a remote place. We are sleeping on pads in these huts and there is a well to get water out of for our shower (bucket to dump on my head) and squatters. Pretty primitive over here. it's cool but not very fun for Bali belly. Ha. Bali belly definitely was makin me pretty homesick. I get to see my mom really soon. I'll be meeting her in cairns. I hope she's not worried since it's been a while since I've been able to text or email her.

Okay my trip thus far: So I got into Ubud, Bali on Saturday the 30th of July and fell asleep almost immediately after traveling for about 36 hours to get there. Courtney got in around 10pm and I barely woke up enough to open the door for her. Sunday we went to monkey forest and shopped around Ubud. Such a cute town and lots of people watching and nice little cheap restaurants so we took it easy.  The monkeys were hilarious. They are lil jerks. Ha stealing peoples water bottles or bananas or anything they could get their hands on. And grabbing ankles and growling. Ha. Then Monday we went on a volcano tour at 9am. It was neat no one else signed up for it the day Courtney and I did so we had a driver for the day and he took us all over!! We went to an Elephant Cave Temple, a holy water temple, to ride elephants, to see this crazy big rice terrace or rice patties, and we ate lunch over looking Mount Batur Volcano. It was a packed day and we saw so much! So after that we went back to the room for a bit then went to have dinner with a friend I went to high school with that just happened to be in ubud so that was wild! Super fun. Then we headed back and had to get some serious rest for our big 2am trek to the top of Mount Batur. wowzas. It was just that. A trek! They took us to have banana pancakes (more like a crepe here) and some hot tea then to the bottom of mount Batur. Putu was our precious Indonesian tour guide. It took about 2.5 hours to get up then we sat and watched the sunrise and took pictures. Courtney met two girls that were also teaching English in South Korea so that was pretty crazy. Then we walked a little farther to see the crater. They were these holes in the crater that were blowing hot air from the volcano! Whoa! Warmed up my freezing cold hands for about 2 seconds. Then back down the volcano. It was a little difficult with lots of slippery spots and loose rocks rolling all over but at least it wasn't pitch black like on the way up with a few crappy flashlights :)  so we made it back to the home stay around 10am and by 11:30 we were heading to ParangBai to get on a ferry to Gili Trawangan. What a day. I'll keep it g rated but gili trawangan is a pretty funny place. There was a meteor shower so that was amazing seeing heaps of shooting stars (one of my favorite aus words:heaps!)

It's now august 24 and I leave in 10 days! Ahh I'm in manly just outside of Sydney. wifi sucks and it's hard to take the time to blog when inhave so little time left in the sunburned country. A quick run through of what I miss: my bed, my nephews, my sister, warmth, (it's winter here, which is nothing like our winter, but still!), I miss people saying y'all, I miss my dogs!!!!, did I mention my bed?, I miss jif peanut butter, my roomie, my big Mac, I miss editing, I miss you. I miss dvr.

But instead of thinking of everything I miss I should enjoy my time here cuz I'll miss it in 10 days. I head to Byron bay tomorrow night at 10pm for a 12 hr bus ride. Should be a good time. Will have to give a full run through of the trip soon!