We had a day to kill here in Bali, so we set up a mini self-guided walking tour of Denpasar. On the itinerary was the Bali Museum. It was just OK. We did find two, um, interesting pieces. The first was a painting of an ecstatic woman who is just a little too into her [...]
The number one specialty of Balinese cooking is Babi Guling: roasted suckling pig. Having led a mostly vegetarian existence the last couple of weeks, we had a powerful urge to seek out the best Babi Guling we could find. We were told that the Denpasar Night Market would be the place to enjoy the dish [...]
The beach scene in Bali is a sun and surf seeker’s paradise. Since Martin and I aren’t pumped about either of these things (I’ve had melanoma and Martin doesn’t like to swim), we’ve opted to explore Denpesar, which is a typical Indonesian mid-size city. On yesterday’s walk around the city, we ran across a [...]
This is the plane that took us from Maumere, Flores, to our present location: Denpasar, Bali. It is a battered old Fokker F100. I remember flying in them in the early 1980s, thinking that geez these planes are old school. Around here, Merpati is known as the airline that never retires their planes, they [...]
We struck up a conversation with a German mother and daughter the other night. They told us they’d spent the day at the local clinic. The mother had contracted malaria two weeks prior and needed more medication. Malaria? Really? It turns out that she contracted it in Labuanbajo, a town we stayed in around [...]
Merokok is Indonesian for ‘smoke’, and smoke is what Indonesians do all the time, everywhere; in buses, cars, trains, restaurants, bedrooms, ferries and bars. It’s gone so far that today after lunch I felt like having a cigarette. This is just from exposure to secondary smoke. Worry not. I’m not about to start smoking [...]
Our departure date for this round the world trip was April 29th, which is just over 4 months ago. We need to be in New York, to see my incredible sister Kheli graduate from Vet school in June 2010. This makes our time on the road around 13 months. We may, depending on how well [...]
Just a quick note to those of you who see a headline saying that there has been a big quake in Indonesia and are thinking of us: it struck nowhere near us. We’re a thousand miles away. No tsunami would get us, as we have several mountainous islands in between us and the quake; as [...]
These are a series of true conversations that took place over the last few months. That it happened once was odd. That it’s happened three times is blog worthy. Vietnam, circa two months ago: Hmong woman: “Hello! You buy from me! I give you good price! You have beautiful nose!” Indonesia, two weeks [...]
I grew up in San Diego, a Southern California city just north of Mexico. Think Baywatch, minus the Hoff. The community is rather beach-centric. Not surprising, given the climate and its miles of beaches. Indonesia, as we all know by now, has its fair share of beach. We came across one yesterday while hunting [...]
As part of our tour around Moni, a small hillside village at the foot of the Kelimutu volcano, we were driven to a local chief’s house. I am more or less certain that he no longer uses the house, but it was certainly interesting to visit. The locals replace the roof and floor material every [...]
Frequent seatofourpants readers report that they are seeing what we’ve been seeing for a while now. Bacon is growing gray. I guess the main culprit is the constant life in a backpack. Jungle trekking and drinking binges may also contribute to his color shift. To save some pink (his words, not ours), bacon [...]
This may sound a bit crazy for those of you reading this from your work cubes, but at the moment we’re sick and tired of traveling. This happens when you’re on a long trip. It is most acute after a month or so of constant movement, which is what we’ve just done. Lake Toba was [...]
At various times in my life I’ve found myself being very outspoken about female rights. That being said, there are times on this trip that I’ve gladly taken the back seat from a male/female point of view. Take our visit to the mummy village outside of Moni as a good example. We arrived on [...]
Part of our tour around Moni was a visit to an ikat weaving village. It was here that we learned how the pieces we purchased were made. Though most of the threads are now bought cheaply at the store, they illustrated for us how the cotton was spun and prepared in the past. The [...]
You know the saying, “to fly by the seat of your pants?” Well, that's been our philosophy for most of our adult lives – before and after meeting, falling in love and marrying. We're now taking that idea on an extended round-the-world trip. Follow us as we share the good, the bad and the downright nasty of life on the road.
