The overnight flight to Sydney was relatively painless (cramped back and numb limbs aside). Kat picked me up from the airport and was patient with me on the way to their house: “and this looks like Cape Town…”, “and this looks like Jo’burg…”, “and this looks like California…” (never mind that I haven’t actually been to California ). It was really SO lovely to see them after almost 2 years, and also just nice to be in a normal country where the signs are in English and I generally know what food I’m eating…Ohhh, I’ve had the best few meals I’ve had in years over the past week: cheese and red wine for dinner on the first night; 2 braais over the next 2 days and generally Kat’s fab cooking. My digestive system has behaved very well considering I have punished it completely (its probably in shock).

The past week has been surprisingly perfect – to be truthful I hadn’t expected much from Australia (what with it being “so much like SA…”), but the weather has  been glorious; there’s been so much to do and Sydney just has such a cool vibe to it.  First day was Zoo Day: a very cool zoo with gorgeous views over the harbour. (Although Ozzie animals need a bit of zooting up: brown and grey fur just isn’t all that exciting, guys). Over the weekend we whizzed about going from beach to beach with a braai at Bobbinhead with Gia and Gareth (again, so comforting to see people I know after so long of being a homeless hobo), where we got the fishing rods out and caught… some weeds, of course.

For one of the days this week I caught the train into town and wandered around on my own (Sydney Harbour Bridge, the Opera House, someone’s wife’s chair (actually a bit of rock – I was wandering around looking for a chair. Doh.), Botanical Gardens, The Rocks, George Street), and realised that there is just something so comforting about seeing a man in a suit on a mobile – he’s got places to go and people to meet and he’s not the slightest bit interested in saying hello or asking where I’m from. Quite a relief! It really is like being in a jumbled up version of SA or the UK. Prices are very similar to the UK (almost everything is the same price, except pregnancy tests, weirdly); the same films are on (Kat and I went to see the new Harry Potter – pure escapism for 2 hours); and you can even easily find a skinny, decaf, sugar-free hazelnut latte. Phew!

One factor that differs somewhat to the UK is that everyone is so sporty: the day that I went to town was clearly the day that no one went to work: they were all running about all over the show, looking very glamorous and thin and not the slightest bit sweaty. On the weekend at a beach in Narrobene there were a few surfers; one of them must have been financially challenged as his board was an old piece of wood that looks like an ironing board (more sinking than riding the barrels). Kayaking, mountain biking, swimming, quad biking, paragliding… everyone does something sporty. Puts me to shame…

Does knitting count?

The Jackson Clan

Our last day in Lombok was another moocher; dawdling along the beach and reading. The flight to Bali was in the afternoon so we dosed Felie up on as much sleep as he could handle… which came back to bite us in the evening: the Wriggler didn’t like the long boring taxi ride to the hotel, so the wheels on the bus went round and round and round and round, Mary had several lambs and Nix and I were very curious about state of the little twinkly star. But we got there in the end and Felix was probably so horrified with our singing that he pretended to go to sleep immediately, if only to keep us from squawking at him again.

Going back to Bali was like going home: when I walked back in to the homestay there were shouts of “Alexandra! Alexandra!”. Nicky and I spent a couple of days wandering around Ubud, Nix had a foot massage with sticks (of course) and visited the Monkey Forest with Felix, while I caught up on admin and reading.

Nicky has a friend, Florence, who lives in Bali, so we popped in to visit her, her boyfriend and little daughter for lunch at their gorgeous house close to the beach and ended the day with a visit to the beach to watch the sun go down over the sea and a bite to eat. Back in Ubud that evening Nix and I shared a few beers to mourn the end of her holiday and our time together. Boo… She and Felie caught the plane back to London the next morning and I hopped on a motor bike (not pink, although the owner had stuffed some flowers behind the licence plate which I didn’t like to tamper with as they looked like they had been placed there for sacred, protective purposes. So still not a hard-core biker-chick).

An hour and a half north of Ubud are a cluster of volcano crater lakes where all the pariwisata lokal (local tourists) go on weekends and public holidays. Being Independence Day, the little town on Candi Kuning, where I stayed for 2 days, was chocka full of Balinese jetskiing on the lake (some in their full muslim dress), haggling over mielies for lunch and generally wandering in the roads, causing impressive traffic jams. It was in Candi Kuning that I had my 2 top Balinese experiences: sate kelenci (rabbit satay), babi guling (suckling pig) and deep fried leaves of some variety; and the Bali Botancial Gardens. Ok, so I know the latter sounds rather twee for a notable experience, but it was more a tidy, manicured forest than a botanical garden, and each time I visited I had the place to myself which made it feel quite  magical. Another sublime experience was rowing through the mist over one of the lakes to watch the sun rise over a Hindu-Buddist temple and as it was so insanely early, I had the whole lake and temple to myself, except for a few quiet fishermen.

But after 2 days up north, my time in Bali had come to and end, and it felt appropriate when, on my last day, I was actually able to have a stilted conversation with someone in very broken Indonesian Bahasa for about 3 minutes. With any luck I’ll be able to remember it for when I come back next month.

Morning temples

The week that Nicky and I spent in Senggigi was a proper holiday, which wasn’t exactly as we had planned: the idea was to spend a few days exploring Senggigi and the Gili islands, then pop over to Flores. But even though I exercised some pretty impressive teeth gnashing and growling at slow computers and defenceless travel agents, fate conspired against us, which actually turned out quite well.

We stayed in a gorgeous little bungalow and ate our evening meals communally with a strange assortment of people: the French couple who noisily launched into each other (‘s mouths) at the table; the virtuous German woman who told anyone with ears how many Indonesian children she had adopted and how she loved eating with her hands (she said this while holding a fork); and the woman who had been in a Vietnamese prison for 2 weeks.

We went off to Gili Trawangan twice. The Gili islands are completely free of motorised vehicles – you can walk around each of them in an hour – and so the atmosphere is really laid-back and relaxed: jangly horse-drawn carts and feet are the only way to get around. Trawangan has a reputation of being The Party Island, although it must be schizophrenic as the only evidence of hard-core revelry was the adverts for “Mushroom Shakes Garanteed To Send You 2 Moon (Delivry or Take Away)”. We braved the boat trip with Felie for one of the days, his first proper trip to the beach, and he loved it – a proper Cape Town boy! Nicky met her first mad Indonesian that day too (perhaps he was on his way to the moon?) who asked Nix about 10 times in quick succession what her name was and interrupted her a few times to ask if it was alright if he could go to sleep.

Getting used to the idea of a proper holiday, I treated myself to another massage one evening. The setting was lovely and I settled down in anticipation onto the semi-inflated lilo, but the pretty lady who I thought was going to ease my aching muscles vanished and from behind a tree popped a knarled old woman with creatively arranged teeth and calloused hands, who promptly poured old cooking oil all over me and tried her best to squash me into the sand, with a poke every now and again for authenticity’s sake. When I got back to the bungalow I smelt like a delicious panini or pizza, so it was a good job it was dinner time.

All in all it was a relaxing week, away from deadlines and dodgy transport (apart from the boat to Gili Air: 57 people plus sundries in a 20-seater boat). Flores and the Komodo dragons will have to wait till after I’ve broken both my legs snowboarding in Australia.

Felie's first day at the beach

The day after my “date” with Gun I woke early and jumped on a bike to go exploring before Nix and Felix arrived. First on the list was a waterfall. I got to the park entrance and was told by a horde of men that I needed a guide (obviously). When they told me how much they wanted I laughed and said I was happy to go on my own, to which one of them grabbed his crotch and said, “Ok, maybe you lucky and I see you in 5 minutes in the jungle.” So when someone else named a lower price I went with him but didn’t feel any better when we passed 2 heavy-lidded, panting Indonesians rearranging their clothes. I stayed at the waterfall for long enough to take 2 photos and then scurried back, with my guide trailing after me.

In the afternoon Gun took me to the airport to pick up Nix and Felix. It was SO lovely to see Nicky, and we both dissolved into tears (admitted me more than her). She looked completely shattered after 30-odd hours in the air with Felie, a 9 month old with tummy issues. Felie wasn’t too impressed with Indonesia initially, but once we got him back to Tetebatu, he fell asleep instantly.

The next day we had a quiet day at the homestay. The locals instantly fell in love with Felix and they ALL wanted to hold him. One of the guys in the homestay, Idi, was particularly good with Felix and they would vanish for hours on end, both of them gurgling and giggling when they reappeared. That afternoon we went to watch stick fighting on the east side of Lombok, which was absolutely fascinating, but we should have charged tickets to watch and touch Felie – Nix would have made a fortune!

Gun drove us to Senggigi on the west coast of Lombok the following day and I was quite pleased to leave Tetebatu and my future Indonesian husband (who had offered to come to London and be a taxi driver so we could be together).

This is what becomes of forgetting my beloved fiance.

the stick fighting champion

My last day in Bali was slow and relaxing, although the morning started a little more eventfully than the rest of the day: I wandered down to the Monkey Forest Sanctuary early in the morning and sat down to watch the morning sunlight peek through the trees and the monkeys catching each other’s tails. All quite soothing… until I tried to get up and realised I had 4 monkeys attached to me. One actually climbed onto the top of my head. I asked them nervously to “please get off”, but it was only when a “monkey minder” came to the rescue that I became monkey-free. I was a little itchy for the rest of the day.

Early the following morning I said goodbye to Ketut, one of the staff at the homestay, and started the journey to Tetebatu in Lombok (bus, bus, boat, bus, bemo, ojek). The boat bit took up most of the day which was unfortunate  and I was a little green when I wobbled ashore. Of all the “orang asing” that were going to Lombok from Bali, I was the only one going to Tetebatu, a tiny village on the slopes of Gunung Rinjani. I was shooed into a bemo (minivan), next to an old lady, who was the town comedian / drunk (possibly both). She took me under her wing, even though she didn’t speak a word of English, and took it upon herself to teach me Indonesian. The two of us had the whole bemo entertained for the hour-long journey, and my teacher cried with laughter every time she taught me a new word. When it was time to go, all 21 passengers (in a 12-seater) hung out of the windows shouting goodbye (well they were shouting something…). I found a gorgeous place to stay just outside of Tetebatu, with lovely staff who play the guitar at dinner time. Very calm and peaceful. One of the staff, Gun, has the same birthday as me, which is rather clever of him as 14th December is the best day in the year for a birthday.

The next day Gun offered to take me into Mataram so I could book a flight for Nicky and Felix (very, VERY excited that they were coming!). The journey was a little tiring with Gun getting carried away with our future life together: “When we have children they will only have to remember one birthday”; “When we get married I will take you to Bali every year on honeymoon” etc etc. While these were all very good reasons for a relationship, I was not convinced and was quite pleased to get back to Tetebatu. In the afternoon I went for a little stroll around the village, though the tobacco fields and rice paddies, and have now inched closer to using up my lifetime’s quota of the words “Hello” and “South Africa”.

I had agreed earlier in the day (before I knew I was going marry Gun), to go out for dinner in a nearby village for goat satay. However it turned into something resembling a date as he took me to watch the sun go down before the satay (on the pretence of looking at some deer) and after dinner he took me to some kind of shebeen in a tomato farmer’s house, although the proprietors quickly went to sleep when we arrived. On the way home on the motorbike, after some dodgy home-made rice wine, and Gun describing how dogs, cats, chickens, goats and elephants “have sek”, he kept telling me to hug him because he was cold.

This is what comes of forgetting my beloved fiance.

Offerings in the street in Ubud

Its been over a month since my last motorbike accident, the memory of which had faded sufficiently for me to brave 2 wheels again. (But why do I always get a pink motorbike?! Why don’t I get “Dangerous Red & Black” or “Thunderbolt Silver”?)

I had the pink-toilet-paper-coloured bike for 3 days. Please find below my observations on driving in Bali:

1. Hooting: A versatile form of communication that can mean “Hello”; “I’m going to overtake/undertake”; “Hang on, I want to say hello”; “Look, we have the same pink bike”; “Don’t you love the sound of my hooter?”
2. Police: What friendly chaps, waving and blowing their whistles. I hope they didn’t mind that I waved back and drove on.
3. Traffic circles: Why should everyone go the same way round? How boring! Complete chaos is much more fun.
4. Directions: If you happen to ask directions from someone who has no immediate physical contact with any sort of motorised vehicle, go in the opposite direction.
5. Signposts: Who needs signposts? If absolutely necessary, make sure they are completely hidden by foliage.
6. Town names: The more towns with the same name in one district the better.
7. Town names: An even better idea is to give the same town 2 different names.

All in all I had great fun. For the first 2 days I whizzed around the countryside, visiting temples, rice paddies, and chatting to people on the side of the road (I must have answered “I’m from South Africa” literally about 65 times; everyone wants to know, and I did stop to ask directions A LOT). Lunch times were fun: The first day I had 2 teenage girls laugh and point at my toes (what’s wrong with them?!)… and then weirdly tell me I was sexy, which I put down to a poor translation. The following day I stopped in a village and caused quite a stir: people came from about 5 houses away just to watch me eat. Quite unnerving, especially since I wasn’t entirely sure what was on my plate.

The back roads in Bali are so quaint and smell gorgeous from the frangipani trees. My highlight in the first 2 days was definitely the rice paddies at Tirta Gangga – 4 hours away from Ubud (well 4 hours there, only 2 hours back), and so peaceful. I plonked myself under an old frangipani tree, next to a shrine and sat watching the rice farmers walk by for a few hours.

The 3^rd day was a little different. I decided to brave Kuta and take a surfing lesson. I had high expectations of being exceedingly brilliant, and I’m sure I would have been if there weren’t so many other people trying to learn who were not as clearly talented as I in the way. Well. After 2.5 hours I came to the conclusion that surfing is for losers – what’s the point of standing up on a board in the sea anyway? After the lesson I scuttled back to my Grandma-mobile and survived rush-hour traffic through Kuta and Denpasar, which restored my pride somewhat.

One evening I went to see a Kecak Fire Dance. Same strange story as the dance I saw in Jogja, but far more beautiful: the dancers’ movements were so precise and elegant, and as a bonus afterwards there was a man dressed up as a horse frolicking around on burning coconut shells. Marvellous!

Rice fields at Tirta Gangga