Toys

Pictures of old toys at a museum in Hong Kong

Back home again

Writing this from our local cafe in Budapest. Eating breakfast out, having returned yesterday.

We had a long travel from Hong Kong. After spending the day at Disneyland, we had a flight at 2am (in the meantime went back to the Disneyland hotel where we had spent the previous night, had a swim and ate). The first flight was about 8.5 hours to Doha in Qatar, then 3 hours in the airport, then 5.5 hours to Vienna (and it was delayed a bit), then 2 hours drive to Budapest. From door to door it all came to about 24 hours travel.

Hong Kong is +6 hours so our body clocks are messed up of course. I got out of bed this morning at 5:30 having been half awake for a while, and found the two girls already out of bed and playing quietly. They are happy to be back with their ponies and costumes. Although on the way back Briana said she would have liked a little longer in Bali!

We had two days in Disneyland, which was just about right. HK Disneyland is not terribly large but has all the core attractions - Fantasyland, Tomorrowland, Adventureland and "Main Street USA". Luckily for us it was not busy at all especially on our 2nd day, so we could often finish a ride, run back to the entrance again and get right back on. We did almost everything at least once and some things 3 or 4 times. Briana and F both happily went on the Space Mountain rollercoaster and enjoyed it a lot - no fear!

We stayed one night at the Disneyland Hollywood hotel, because then we got two days at the park for the price of one. Anyway it turned out to be a good idea for a number of reasons - it was close to the park of course, the room was spacious and family-oriented, good pool, close to airport, etc. And the girls were delighted when Goofy joined them in the swimming pool and on the water slide!

Before that, we had 4 nights in the center of HK, staying in the Western District of Hong Kong Island. The street where we stayed contained a long row of shops selling 'dried things from the sea' - shark fins, anenomes, eels, etc. Strong smelling stuff! We did a number of the main sights in HK although one would need a lot of time to see it properly. One highlight was the international dragon boat racing regatta which happened to be one, after which we had a traditional dim sum meal in a restaurant where absolutely everything was in Chinese and they had to not only translate for us but also recommend what to order, etc.

Before HK, we were in Java with 4 nights in Yogyakarta and 2 nights in Solo. The main reason to visit this area are the ancient Buddhist and Hindu temples are Borbodur and Prambanan (which are beautiful and atmospheric, but rather expensive to visit for foreigners). In the remaining days, mainly we just looked around the towns, saw some Sultan's palaces, visited some markets, and so on.

In a way, we were a bit undermotivated in the last week or so, with everyone thinking of getting back home and I have to admit kind-of counting the days until the return flight. Also, with Bali having been the place we liked the most, everything after it paled a bit in comparison.

Now we are just relaxing and unpacking. The lady who was supposed to have cleaned our flat before our return didn't do so, and as a result the place is rather dusty and a bit too many insects around so we'll need to spruce the place up a bit as well! Unfortunately our infestation of food moths have come back in anger in our absense so we'll have to sort that out.

Borobodur

Today we visited the very impressive Buddist temple Borobodur which is from the 9th century but was unearthed only in the 19th century, and drove up towards Mount Merapi to see where the lava flow destroyed a village only 3 years ago!

We had lunch at a restaurant along the way where every table is on an individual pavilion on a small lake, the fish there was so good we ordered a second, and when you are finished your fish you can throw the remains into the lake where the large lake fish eat it greedily! We could also take little bamboo rafts out on the the water which was good fun after eating.

It was raining heavily when we got back so Gyorgyi went off to finish the Batik painting course she started yesterday and we retired to our favourite cafe for cake and ice cream.

Fiona was over her high temperature yesterday but we took it easy, not to tire her out. She's fine today. And yesterday Briana was playing in the pool with some kids from the family that I guess own the hotel. They have enough English to communicate.

Tomorrow we will visit the Sultan's Palace in the morning and in the afternoon move to Solo and visit Prambanan along the way.

Yogyakarta

Arrived to Jogya yesterday. We got a taxi at the airport and told him we wanted a not-too-expensive, central hotel, with swimming pool. He brought us to a road with a lot of hotels, and we picked the 4th or 5th we saw. It's about 20 Euro a night for a quite simple room with a double bed and extra mattress, but the place is alright otherwise. (At the airport they wanted to sell us on a 5 star at 80 dollars.)

Unfortunately Fiona has a high temperature since yesterday morning and still today, so we haven't been able to do too much together. We didn't really do much at all yesterday and this morning went for a tour of the Sultan's palace but it was closed due to a Moslem holiday, so we cut that short too - anyway Fiona was very tired (it was only 9am) so Gyorgyi went off to do some sightseening and I went back with the girls to the hotel. Later on after she returned, I went off to the Malioboro area to browse the markets. Neither of us came back empty-handed! It's pretty easy to get nice souvenirs, whether simple t-shirts or nice artwork, and the prices are very low. Even when we know (later) that we paid well over the odds due to lack of local knowledge, it's still very little for Europeans.

The standard mode of transport here is rickshaw. They hold max 2 so we took two this morning. The girls wanted to go on a horse drawn cab so later on we switched to that for the trip back to the hotel. This is the cheapest place we visited. To put the cost-of-living here into context, you can rent a rickshaw for the day for 30000 Rupiah - that's about 2 Euro or 600 Forints. Internet costs as little as 3000 Rupiah an hour (20 Eurocents or 60 Forints) with better deals for longer times or happy hours. Laundry costs as little as 2500 a kilo which means you can have 5 kilos done for less than a Euro - that's perhaps a machine load. T-shirts are 15000 up to 25000 for the better quality - that's 1 to 2 Euros.

I'm in a pretty stylish place writing this called the Ministry of Coffee. I'd seen good reviews of their rooms on tripadvisor and as it turns out we ended up just 20 metres from them. They don't have any rooms free but a nice menu of sweet stuff, so I'm sure we'll drop in again to bulk out a little more before our return.

We've got 5 more nights in Java, and the main aim is to visit Borbodur the big Buddhist temple that was founded between 750 and 850AD, and Pramadnan the other big temple in the area which is Hindu. We might also take in the most active volcano in the world which is not far north of here... at least so long as it's not active at the moment!!! We'll fly out from Solo airport on Friday coming to Hong Kong. Our very last night in HK will be spent in the Disneyland hotel (not cheap but they give us a second days admission to the park for no extra charge - that'll wear the girls out for the night flight home to Europe!)

Leaving Bali :-(

Free internet in Denpasar airport.

Off to Java in an hour or so. To Yogyakarta for about 4 days, then Solo for a couple of nights before on to Hong Kong to end our travels.

We enjoyed Bali a lot, and Jimbaran was our last beach, so we made the most of it and ate lots of seafood on the beach-side restaurants. In fact, there's nothing else in Jimbaran except beach-side restaurants, where busloads of tourists are brought in every night! Full seafood platter for 2 with lobster, prawns, crab, fish, etc., plus a bottle of (Balinese, but not too bad) wine for less than 35 Euro.

Very busy and interesting fish market here early in the mornings... loads of boats disgorging their loads.

Sanur, Bali

On Sunday we arrived in Sanur, travelling via Klungkung (where we visited a big water temple and browsed around the local market) and Gianyar where we lunched on traditional Babi Guling (Roast Pig) and visited the "art market" which was mostly poor quality but interesting to look around.

Sanur is a out-and-out holiday resort, unlike places we visited earlier in Bali. There's a 5km long promenade along a sandy beach which has no waves and safe for swimming. Lots of nice hotels all along the beach (but we're staying in a cheaper place 5 mins away, which is fine and good value for the price although showing it's age a little).

Sanur is also totally flat unlike our previous locations. It's low season in Bali now so mostly it's relatively quiet. Sanur doesn't really have nitelife and there's a higher proportion of families and older people. (I think we're in one of those categories.) But there's a lot of nice cafes and restaurants and after staying in a very basic place for a week it's nice to have some European-style chocolate cake and other home comforts.

It's very humid here so we are continually sweaty. Luckily laundry services are always nearby and cheap!

Yesterday we saw a cremation, which just happened to be at a little temple right beside the beach we were on. They really burn the body right there, with lots of ceremony, and then put the ashes in a coconut and the go out in a boat to drop it in the sea. We saw leaflets advertising tourist trips to a cremation, so we saved 19 dollars by having it on our doorstep! The locals don't seem to mind tourists gawking at all.

We toyed with the idea of visiting the nearest island Nuse Lembongan for a night or two but the boat costs are a bit too high for such a short visit. So instead, from the 4 nights left for us on Bali, we will spend the first two in Sanur and the remaining two in the south tip of the island, not too far from the airport. We fly to Java on Saturday.

Fiona continues to swim better and better, now covering a couple of metres on her own underwater and learning to lift her head to breathe.

Padangbai

We are now in Padangbai, with a room in a hotel just beside the beach. We travelled here yesterday from Amed where we spent a week and did a lot of snorkelling and 7 scuba dives. The second hotel we stayed in there was very good for us, a very very quiet village, right on a good sandy beach for snorkelling (coral 2-3 metres out from the shore), some inexpensive restaurants, dive centre next door etc.


View Larger Map

Padangbai is not close to as nice, but it's ok for a day or two. It's mainly a port where boats go to Lombok, and I doubt anyone stays here for more than a couple of days. We had no accomodation booked and looked at 5 places when we got here and chose the most suitable. Much of the places we saw are small rooms for backpackers and we need something a bit larger and comfortable.

Since there's not much to do here, today is a "rest day" (haha!) We're now in a nice cafe at the quiet end of the beach, called the Topi Inn, and the girls are writing postcards while we do some reading.

Tomorrow morning we go to Sanur which starts to bring us into the busier south of Bali.