last day in paradise!

so excited - in just 1 day i will be leaving bali and heading home to greensboro! so strange for it to be the last day of this 11 month trip, how fast and slow everything has been! in honor of the last day ive posted below some of my 'favorites' from this nearly year long trip

FAVORITE:
city - Brisbane, Australia
island - Pulau Perhentian, Malaysia
beach - Whitehaven Beach, Australia
beach town - Byron Bay, Australia
hiking spot - Tongaria Crossing, New Zealand
diving spot - Pulau Weh, Indonesia
foodie town - Ubud, Bali Indonesia
restaurant - Aquaria, Candidasa, Bali Indonesia
swimming hole - Gitgit Waterfalls, Lovina, Bali Indonesia
adrenaline rush - bungee jumping with AJ Hackett, Queenstown, New Zealand
travel game - "Mine" (thanks to B1 and B2)
book read - "4 Hour Work Week" by Timothy Ferriss
library - Brisbane City Library, Brisbane, Australia
animals - Little Penguins, Melbourne, Australia
lake - Lake Wanaka, New Zealand
mode of transport - sailboat, Whitsunday Islands, Australia
souvenir - my tattoo

sorry for the delay...

internet has been a little difficult the past week or so... lots to update on!

after ubud, went to kuta for a couple days - wasnt a huge fan so moved quickly onto candi dasa, which is a wonderful small beach town. i loved it more than most because i ended up in a abso fantastic hotel called Bali Santi (still cheap cheap!) and found a phenomenal restaurant (Aquaria) which made my days and nights that much sunnier :)
afterwards i headed to tulamben, which is the sight of the liberty shipwreck, one of balis more popular dive sights. most cities do diving day trips there, but i heard when you go for the day trip the sight is unbelievably crowded. so i decided to go to the town for a night and get up early for a sunrise dive, which worked out really well since there were only a few other people in the water and the sight was really cool! i am very happy to have done a proper ship wreck now

after diving was a bit of a frantic journey to pandang bai to get a boat for the gili islands. i went to the larger island first. the highlight there was the movies on the beach they have nightly - love that! next, i went to the smaller island, though was disappointed -i had expectations of Gili being a lot like the perhentian islands, but they really didnt live up! now im back in bali after a wonderful boat ride back. i came to ubud because i missed the rice paddies and figured after i left here (less than 3 weeks now!) it would be a long, long time before i saw them again.

kuta

in kuta now, after a potentially horrendous situation yesterday - i got hit by a motorbike while i was walking on the sidewalk in Ubud. the driver stopped and took me to the clinic and then the hospital because we thought my elbow was fractured. took a couple of xrays and it turns out (thank goodness!) it is only a sprain. will have my left arm in a sling for the next week but very happy it wasnt any worse than that! made the journey to kuta today - its not really my sort of place. a nice, very long beach but the city itself is very polluted and noisy. lots of australians on a short holiday so you have the real Tourist crowd instead of just the backpacker crowd, which means prices are more expensive and life in general is more commercial. i will likely only stay here a couple days and then head maybe to padang padang before going to candidasi and diving the liberty wreck in tulmarine (sp?)

i was impressed though at the hospital and clinic in ubud! the doctor spoke english (almost perfect except for the extremely disconcerted mix up that he *and apparently all other balinese* have of saying "hand" when they mean "arm" and "sick" when they mean "hurt") and the facilities were very clean and orderly (though not nearly as modern as a western hospital) and to top it off, everyone wore fun, brightly colored clothes which gave the place a more festive atmosphere!

tonight headed to the night market in kuta, away from the city center, hoping to get out of the tourist scene for a couple of hours and get back to the street food ive been missing in bali!

ubud

ive been in the Balinese town of ubud for the past few days - i love it here! its a total hippieville, all organic restaurants (ammmazing food) and yoga centers and very bohemian feel everywhere (fab shopping in the markets too - im picking up all of my souvenirs here... including an extra bag to bring them home in!) It is very touristy, much more so then ive seen so far in indonesia, but i love it anyhow :) Today i went to a great restaurant for lunch called Sari Organics... its set about 1km off the main road so you walk for 15 minutes through all of these rice paddies - absolutely beautiful, and the place is set on its own organic farm which is where they grow all of the produce for the meals. really cool.
yesterday was also grand - went to the spa for an hours massage, body scrub and mask and flower petal bath (all for $10 - crazy!) and also took care of essentials such as extending my travel insurance and applying for my visa extension.
also went over to the monkey forest - a def highlight. within this little stretch of forest are 3 different troupes of the feistiest monkeys youve ever seen! theyve also built temples here to the monkeys and other animals of the forest, and theres legend that says the monkeys are protecting a hidden city. very fun

tomorrow im taking a vegetarian cooking class and then going to check out the remaining temples/palaces that i havent yet seen. not really in a rush to leave this place! its more expensive here than im used to in indonesia but not as expensive as kuta and the gillis are supposed to be. im happy to have found a travel company i really like here so am using them for this lovina-kuta trip (the great thing with them is that they let you stop as many places along the route to get out and spend a day or few days as you want - which also means the buses run everyday, on time - shocking!) and am def going to be booking them to head to the gillis as well (and maybe lombok, depending on how the schedule works out)

august 11th

i finally booked a ticket home! i am flying to greensboro out of bali on august 11th (arriving august 12th) and am very excited! cant wait to see everyone again...

so to play catch up... had an uneventful 14 hour trip from yogya to bromo, and got up at 3am to hike up to the summit to see the sunrise... unfortunately the weather wasnt cooperating and all we saw was deep mist growing lighter and lighter - no actual sunrise or colors or even views of the surrounding countryside - disappointing. i was planning to stay the afternoon to hike some more, but it was very difficult trying to find my way around the mountain and to where i was supposed to go (no signs, no maps, etc) so decided to have a javanese massage instead! that evening i caught the night bus to bali, only to find that the trip i had booked (to lovina, bali) was no longer running. ive never met such disorganized tour operators (and this was for a tourist shuttle made for westerners, brochures in english, booked at the hotel for premium prices) - i think the deal was that they dont actually run the trips themselves, just book you on all of the individual operators who will (supposedly) take you were you want to go - which means no one knows anything about the trip, speaks english, or is able to be responsible and correct problems that occur, being delayed so missing connections, etc. needless to say, the whole thing was an exercise in patience. it is a very humbling experience going from asian countries like malaysia and singapore where everyone speaks english and even (unfortunately) apologizes for not speaking perfect english (when youre in their country!) to going to a country where i have been constantly chastised for not speaking fluent indonesian, being laughed at hourly for the "funny" way i look, and given a lower status than locals (even though paying a tourist price) for services.

anyhow, eventually i did get to my destination in bali and spent yesterday lying on the beach, swimming, and reading. today i went to the nearby hot springs and Buddhist monastery. tomorrow im going diving to one of the best dive spots in bali! Lovina it turns out is maybe a little too quiet for me - the lack of tourists compared to what i guess they normally have here means a 24/7 barrage from touts so not a moment peace to enjoy the beautiful surroundings. Plus since im traveling alone at the moment, i would like to head somewhere where there are more backpackers my age so will have friends to be made! I think i will head to Kuta after diving and see how that is for a change...

bali

made it to bali via bromo safe and sound! i must say it was not the most... relaxing trip up here, but very glad to be here and heading to a black sand beach! more dets to come...

BOROBUDUR AND PRAMBANAN

been having a great time in yogya- highlights were the day trip i took to BOROBUDUR AND PRAMBANAN. borobudur is the largest Buddhist temple in the southern hemisphere and prambanan is a super cool Hindu temple not far from it. they were both stunning, beautiful, and interesting.

besides that, havent been doing too much, just hanging around the city, looking for flights HOME in august (booking tomorrow -very excited!), getting a new pair of prescription sunglasses, shopping for presents for my darling niece and nephew, etc etc.

the world cup "football" games are a big deal here because of all the Europeans traveling here. i watched a couple of them, including see america win at the last minute with an exciting goal!

i head out to Bali tomorrow via Bromo - its a 2 day trip but should be really fun. Looking forward to climbing bromo and then getting into Bali! im taking the ferry into Lovina which is one of the more chill beach towns on the island (btw Bali is an island but a very very big island - didnt realize this!) and then from there seeing how things go - cant wait!