Indonesia: Komodo National Park, Day 1

Surprisingly professional airline that we took from Bali to Labuan Bajo on the island of Flores - two or three islands east of Bali. Surely not FAA approved, but quite nice nonetheless.

Conway making things happen on her cellphone as Laure looks on in laughter.

On the pirate ship that would be our home for four days and three nights as we set sail for Komodo National Park.

Arrr... matey. Our pirate ship and dive live-aboard.

Joe's Nook: Making the grade

Editor's Note: The course directors give Joe an A+. It was an absolute pleasure to travel with him throughout our time in Cambodia and Bali. We will surely miss him over the last stretch of our trip. However, we will enjoy the extra sleep...

Here's Joe:

Things I've learned and things I have not.

This trip has been more than simply an experience - it's been a crash course in third world travel. With Dr's Lewis as course directors, here's my grades on the various final exams.

Wet wipes management C-: Only took me three packages to understand the fact that these little blessings are meant to be accessed in a resealable manner, rather than torn open in moments of desperation. The fact that I brought my own package saved my grade here.

Haggling, bartering, and just saying no B+: I made great strides in this area. While over-solicitation thickened my consuming skin, grossly over paying for ubiquitous trinkets taught me there's always a lower price. Sometimes it takes walking away to find out how low that may be.

Water regulation D: Considering I did not stop sweating the entire trip, an IV drip would have been preferable to the 2:1 beer to water ratio I maintained. Also, using the sink water to rinse my toothbrush probably had something to do with my abdominal pains.

Avoiding certain death A-: Risk mitigation was fairly solid. Outside of buying our taxi driver beers, things were generally on the safe side across the board. Sometimes redirection was necessary (ie Marta shooting down Drew and my trip from Ubud to Kuta, or Drew questioning the sobriety of the motorbike driver I was boarding to the beach party), but that's what friends are for, right?

Final grade for the course: Pass. Only failing on the risk avoidance exam would have resulted in a certain failure.

Indonesia: Bali, Ubud

A note from Marta....

Ubud, Bali (now famous for the setting of the movie "Eat, Pray, Love") is up in the mountains a couple hours from the metropolitan center of Bali. I convinced the boys we needed to explore this haven for the last two days of Joe's travels. We started the morning off with a Bali Bike Tour....basically 17 miles all downhill. We did an extended home visit to one of the rural family compounds. All the homes are based around a communal kitchen and Hindu temple, which is interesting because the rest of Indonesia is mainly Muslim. The highlight of the tour was biking through the numerous rice paddies, as you can tell from the photos below.

We met Conway in Ubud after our very strenuous day of biking for a big night in Ubud. She already had a mojito happy hour planned for us. The next stop was the famous rib joint called Naughty Nuri's, also written up by the NY Times and Anthony Bourdain. Not only are they known for their BBQ ribs (grilled near the street), but also their strong coctails. Bloody Mary, yes please! We spent a good few hours there. A few drinks later we were ready to hit the Ubud scene, of course totally happening on a Monday night at 8pm.

We called our newly befriended cab driver and proceeded to drive multiple loops around Ubud with bad hip hop and lots of bass blaring. Obviously a good idea. We finally settled on the only bar that had people in it, all older than us. They also had a live local band. Highlights of the evening include Joe and Conway interpretively dancing to a slow song followed by a round of applause, and Drew singing along out of turn "I was petrified" in such a loud voice that the singer stopped and wanted him to join in. We made it back to the hotel by midnight, only after being the entertainment of Ubud that night!

Joe's last day in Bali was Tuesday. That day we meandered around all the shops in Ubud, took in the Yoga scene at a hip restaurant Kafe, and last, but not least, Joe got his much wanted pedicure! We spent the evening relaxing at Conway's villa back in Seminyak. Joe - we will miss you as a travel partner!

Lake Danau Batur near a couple of Bali's volcanos and the largest lake on the island. This was the start of our Bali Eco Bike Tour day. 

I wanted to see rice paddies. That was definitely the highlight of the bike tour.

Harvesting rice.

Joe helping with the rice harvest.

Somehow we all matched for the bike tour. We look particularly hardcore here considering the entire bike ride was downhill. 

We livened up the "older" Ubud scene on a Monday night. This is only one of the pictures documenting the fun we had. I think it was only 9pm. 

Indonesia: Bali, Seminyak

We arrived to Bali on a Friday night, just in time for Conway's house party and her friend Joe's going away party. Conway, my good college friend, has been in Bali for 4.5 years and is scheduled to move to London in late summer. She lives in Seminyak, one of the beach towns of Bali. Her house party was later followed by a beach party until 4am. Pretty much a lot of great dancing involved and really good burgers late night. Good welcome to Bali right?

Saturday was spent as pictured below. We cooked an amazing brunch and chilled by the pool. A fresh seafood dinner at Jimbaran beach and movie night were also in order.

We partook in Conway and Laure's Sunday brunch tradition at a local hotel that serves all organic food in a beautiful garden. Then Joe, Drew, and I took off for an adventure to the south peninsula of Bali. Balangan Beach, Ulu Watu Temple (where there are lots of bratty monkeys that steal your stuff!), and a nice Italian dinner. Obviously all recommended by Conway because she has been an awesome tour guide!

This is a good view of Conway's villa in Seminyak. Nice, huh!

Pretty much how we spent all of Saturday.

Joe, Conway, Marta and Drew - after brunch. I felt very organic and cleansed.

Joe - soaking it in.

Why must she always bother me?

Balangan Beach

Cliffs overlooking the ocean from Ulu Watu

"What do you have that I can steal?"

Threatdown Alert: Sambo the Elephant

Marta and Joe thought it would be a good idea if I got up close and personal with Sambo the elephant and fed him some bananas. Interestingly, Sambo was in no way restrained as hundreds of school aged children played in the background. If Sambo didn't like the bananas I was feeding him, there was nothing stopping him from crushing me an then trampling hundreds of kids. And for that, we make Sambo the elephant number one on the threatdown list.

Joe's Nook: Same same, but different

Same same...but different.

This southeast Asia tourist colloquial rings true as our plane lifts off from the phnom penh airport bound for Singapore. Seven days ago my third world cherry was popped. And now looking down on the cambodian coast as the sunsets, nothing has changed about the topographical landscape ("same same"), but the viewpoint from the observer is completely altered ("but different"). The effect is not unlike meeting someone new and, subsequently, getting to know them. The other person doesn't change (usually), but with familiarity comes alterations and understandings of that individual. Thus, over time, that individual may seem completely different. So it goes.

Drew has already covered a lot of the stage directions of our escapade, so I will attempt to add some background vocals to the high lights and low lights. Organized (because the Lewis' LOVE to organize!) by topic area:

Physical health: travelers diarrhea? Double Check. Two of us have started cipro. One of us is dosing it correctly (+1 for marta). Deet rash? Triple check. By phnom penh, Japanese encephalitis did not sound too bad. Impetigo? Single check. Glad to know that my skin is an adequate culture medium. Fatty liver? In the works. Drew and I have a significant head start on marta, but we are staying with one of her bff's in bali, so we'll give her the benefit of the doubt (generous I know).

Mental health: while the museum and killing fields (pleasant name, right) tours yesterday certainly jarred the jubilation just bit, we rebounded in true Midwestern fashion, and drank away our sorrows. After some charitable consuming and an American trivia competition between tuk tuk drivers, we were firmly back above homeostasis.

Threat downs: komodo dragons still top this crews most feared list. But drew's recent encounter with an elephant amidst a herd of school children in a city park certainly ups the threat level to defcon 3. Sumbo (not to be confused with the feather toting flying cartoon version) looked eerily similar to other face crushing beasts I've seen on late night Spike TV - mashing human bones with head and hind legs alike. But such a massive piece of mammal, standing completely unteathered, in a horde of shrieking children only seemed dangerous after his owner (?) snapped at me quite strongly for being to close for a picture of drew feeding the giant a rack of bananas. His obvious fear of Sumbo's potential wrath made me question who owned who in their relationship? (and also where the hell did they live?).

Flight crew is preparing the cabin for landing, so better stowe the crackberry. More to come. And hopefully some more random marta thoughts next time, as this post is noticeably lacking in that department.

Ps this is the longest note I've written with two fingers since cheating in typing class in grade school. Didn't know at that time how big the skill of keyboarding was going to be.

Reflejos de Marta: Asia seems like a pretty cool continent

Asia...it has been a good continent.

After only traveling to two Asian countries so far (Singapore and Cambodia), I know this is a region I will definitely be exploring more again in the future. My loving husband has already been doing an amazing job updating the blog with his photos and our friend Joe has had some quality contributions. If you haven't checked out Joe's Nook yet, you should...another entry on the way.

I am going to leave you with a few highlights and observations from our Cambodia adventure.

-It is REALLY hot in this country. Good thing I brought the standard bandana dew rag. I swear our taxi driver never broke a sweat while we basically had wet clothes at the end of templing.
-Joe has been a great travel partner, especially when he encourages the married couple to go out more. He has also handled the Lewis tifs and neuroses quite well :)
-The people in this country are incredibly kind and generous. Our hotel in Siem Reap practically felt like family after 5 nights. They received a lot of thank you bows when we left.
-The capital city of Phnom Pehn was way more developed and cosmopolitan than I expected. After being deserted from 1975-1980ish with the Khmer Rouge, it is amazing to see where Cambodia is at now.
-The temples of Angkor were spectacular and overwhelming. There are sooo many! I loved the ones we had completely to ourselves.
-There are a lot of quality NGO organizations popping up everywhere. Many making free trade products or educating youth. A few favorites 1) Bloom in Siem Reap - makes trendy bags out of recycled rice bags. 2) Friends Restaurant in Phnom Pehn - one of a few restaurants teaching Cambodian youth the service industry and of course amazing food! 3) Rajana - a handicrafts store working with Cambodian women - many amazing silk products and handmade items.
-I bought orange silk sandals. They are amazing. They had to make the blog post right?! They rival the other best purchase in Asia - Obama tshirts with Obama written in Khmer. Drew and Joe each bought 2.
-Drew keeps trying to scare me with Komodo dragon jokes and makes this licking noise with his mouth. See prior blog post about Komodo - we go there next week in Indonesia.
-I got a Khmer herbal remedy body scrub in Siem Riep. Let's just say I wasn't expecting the orange body scrub to be on EVERY part of my body. I guess you should just throw your modesty out the window before getting pampered in Asia.
-Cambodia is a must see country. I loved it.