Indonesia - Last Days

The best way to see the island is to hire a driver. Note this may all sound very grand and that but it costs only... 15 pounds per day all in - we always wanted our own chauffeur!! So when in Rome and all that... Our driver was called Made and had been recommended to us by friends. We spent three great days touring the island. The first picture is the night before we started our trip, all the Balinese families gather at the beach and spend hours together just messing in the water. A bit like the 'cat and dogs' in the old days.




We stopped on route to a arts and crafts 'factory'. This place was packed with stone carvings, this is one of the guys at work. What happens is all this stuff is produced on the island, then buyers from around the globe (but mainly the USA) come and buy the stuff up and send it home. Elvis was trying to work out how she could get a stone table and three Buddha statues in the backpacks! It's deceiving, although the stuff is really cheap, it's quite expensive to send it home.






Now I could pretend that these pictures were in the wild and normally that's where I prefer to see them - but there's some animals that are best seen with some solid fence work between you and them and here are a few examples! Our God son Christopher Sorrell likes to see the animals so these are especially for him. You've got your 'twisty faced' crocodile.







This is a green tree frog. What do you mean it's not dangerous? It'll have you - it's got big 'orrible sharp teeth, it'll take a mans head clean off......(Copyright Monty Python).











This is the amazing Komodo Dragon, found mainly on the Indonesian island of Komodo. This is an adult male and is about 2.5 metres from nose to tail. It can smell blood (using its forked tongue) from miles away, if it bites you, you've had it! If the bite doesn't kill you it has so many foul bacteria living in its mouth that you'll be dead from the saliva infection within a matter of days. While I was taking this picture it started to hiss and although I was a safe distance it still scares the hell out of you! Another cup of tea if you can tell me what kind of animal a Komodo Dragon is, a clue would be its other name, 'land crocodile'.

David Attenborough - eat your heart out. These are iguanas of various types, they quite heavy you know! I think these two had been sniffing glue because they didn't move a muscle!














This is construction of a bridge - Balinese style! A free cup of tea if you can spot the safety harnesses, hard hats and safety boots. In fact I saw one guy welding, he was holding the metal with his bare feet and protecting his eyes with a pair of 'Elvis Presley' sun glasses! Stewart Sorrell, you would have a field day here. I have recommended you to the Balinese Embassy as their Health and Safety Advisor.






If David Beckham can get away with it - so can we! This is us on the way to a temple - no legs on show please!











This is the lake Batur with with the mountain in the background.










I love this picture! This is the paddy fields around the mountains with an old guy tending the fields, the irrigation system is phenomenal, all the water
coming down the mountain is channelled along the rows so that all the rows are water logged before it pours into the next fields and the same again, eventually it pours into a stream and away to the river.















This was a little unnerving! We drove into a village just as a cock fight was finishing and everyone was pouring onto the street. We couldn't move for 5 minutes while the crowd passed, some of them holding bloody fighting cocks under their arms.

This is the fruit and veg isle of Asda! This is how you buy fresh fruit in the villages. Whatever is in season or ripe is for sale, no doubt the odd Englishman will ask them if they can have a punnet of strawberries!










This is Banjar Hotsprings. There's lots of volcanic activity on Bali so hot springs is a given! It was very nice but it would have been better if the temperature out of the water wasn't the same as in the water! The setting was spectacular though, it was like one of those sets from an Indiana Jones film.












Us posing in the grounds! There was a big sign saying No Naked Bathing. So a free cup of tea if anyone can guess the nationality of the woman walking around the pools in the buff (although she still had her top on)?















This is the amazing rainforest - can you just smell it? It's a pity that in a few years time there'll be none of this left because every year they cut and burn(in Sumatra) so much of it down it causes most of South East Asia to be choked with smoke.













This is a local village on the way to their Hindu Temple. They are carrying offerings to their ancestors on their heads (mainly food etc). It's only offered though to be blessed! At the end of the worship they take it home with them.















Elvis and I at a roadside food stall. We had Pig! Pork meat, cracknel and skin with a pork soup. It was truly gorgeous, which is lucky because there was nowt else on the menu!
















This is Tanah Lot Temple - the temple in the ocean.

Even the roundabouts have lavish adornments!



















And for a bonus cup of tea - what kind of bird is this? Zoom in and look at those angular wings (no its not the latest American stealth bomber) - it looks like some angel of death stalking the sky and the seagulls aren't too fond of them either.

Cup of tea answers! Ginny when I send pictures of me wearing a seaweed thong, smoking a a seaweed pipe you're not supposed to go off telling everybody. Anyway, I heard it's only used in cosmetics but then again I'm not a reet CS.