May 2006

We hired a jeep from Kuta and travelled up to the northen end of the island. And before you say anything, i know its a hairdressers car.

3000m up, the area of Kintamani has two main volcanoes, Gnung Batur and Gnung Agung. We stayed in the town of Toyah Bunkah at the base of the Batur volcano. We had read that the treks to the top are definately worth doing and this was part of the main reason to come here. But we were never told that we had to drag our sorry arses out of bed at 3:30, start at 3:45 and trek for 2hrs to reach the freezing cold summit for sunrise at 6am. But it was worth it to see the view from the top.

View from our room

On the way to Kintamani

We spent two days in Ubud, which is around 50km north of Kuta, but seems a million miles away as its so different. We went to the monkey forest which was quite amusing, where the monkeys will steal anything that is not tied to you or bolted down.

We saw a traditional Balinese dance in a temple in the evening which as this osrt of thing goes was ok. The best part was when one of the scenes went wrong when a man tripped over a wire or something and ended up knocking himself out and had to be carried away.

We arrived in Bali on the 10th after a two and a half hour flight from Singapore. We went straight to Kuta beach and stayed here for around 5 nights, spending most of the time on the beach during the day and in the bars at night. The place is like Spain for the Aussies and there are more here per square mile than anywhere weve been.

We rented a moped and went to Nusa Dua, apparently the more espensive area of Bali with more package holiday resorts, but the beaches there were cool.

Singapore is another ultramodern city with skyscrapers just like Kuala Lumpur only cleaner and more expensive. Smoking, spitting, dropping chewing gum and doing just about anything you shouldnt in public places will get you a massive fine from the police and of course, as in Malaysia, it is the death penalty for any kind of drugs.

We only stayed one day and spent this time in and around Orchard Road - the main shopping district in the heart of Singapore, looking for cheap digital stuff.

Kuala Lumpur is the biggest and most developed city weve been to so far. The skyscrapers there are just awesome, they have the Petronas towers which are the tallest twin towers in the world and the KL tower which is 4th biggest telecommunication building.

We only spent a few days there so we did a bit of a tour of the city one day and then spent some Ringget in the markets in Chinatown which sold everything fake from handbags, trainers, DVDs, watches you name it theyve got a copy of it.