Heaven On The Planet Lombok

... stint, and actually passed four other groups. We were flying. In fact, we jogged quite a lot of the way down. It was easier than walking as gravity carried you, whereas if you try to walk at a slow and steady pace you have to fight gravity and it hurts your legs more. We made it to the bottom by about 11am, so what took us 9 hours to climb, only took us 3.5 hours to come down.

Once at the bottom we stopped for lunch. Our guides excelled themselves ...

... holiday resort where visitors may relax and recover. Plenty of glistening white sandy beaches are found on almost all of the entire island boundaries, but this is not all offer, the smaller island to the north namely Gili Air, Gili Meno, Gili Trawangan and to the southwest is Gili Nanggu, Gili Gede, Gili Genting and many others only some of which are inhabited, provide a tropical island holiday featuring sun, sand, sea marine beauty. Swimming, snorkeling, and diving would be the ...

... of this??? Don't worry, Mom-- the jungle method of making one's blood nasty by eating papaya leaves will not replace my daily regimen of Doxycycline. Sengiggi Beach is a lot cleaner than I had been led to believe. The vistas are very beautiful. The water is delightful. Downside--the sand is hotter than hell. It is hotter than walking barefoot on hot asphalt. You have to wear flip flops from your beach towel to the water. I'm not kidding.

... the beautiful scenery of the northern part of the island for the first time. The three of us got to Monsoon Point and on cue, as we were walking to the cliff's edge, the monsoon poured on us again. The two girls ran upto the shelter while I enjoyed the rain on the cliff. I came up to the shelter, noticing that Jake's bike was parked on the road, and found the two girls, Jake and a Sasak dude with a massive rifle. It was an interesting ...

Our Indo days are comming to and end, but what a time it has been! Lu left you last in nusa Lombongan (best right handers of my life at shipwrecks! Tom, thinking of you ;0) since then we have done loooooads, we headed back to Kuta Bali as we had Patch, Hels and Mikey coming over for 10 days of fun in the sun. And fun it was. It happened also to be Lupis birthday so once again we abandoned the travelers budget (seems we've done that a lot) and pimped it ...

... The light was beginning to hide the stars and show the colors of the sun. I reached the top just as the sun peaked from the horizen of the clouds to the east. It was amazing but freezing at 3700meters. You could see the entire island and the entire climb along the spine of the crater. I was floored but only spent a brief time on the top, more so than anything I was turning blue. The walk down was more of a run and as the sun found ...

... around the city alone, as traffic here is not unlike bumper cars. The key, I think, is to pick a destination and a trusty driver and close your eyes. More on Cambodia as it happens. Lets talk about Indonesia! First let me say, traveling on the cheap often requires one to be creative with his/her transportation. Indonesia is not famous for its air carriers, needless to say the budget air carriers. However, flying with Merpati was ...

"Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada advises against non-essential travel to Indonesia...There is an ongoing terrorist threat to Westerners and Western interests in Indonesia. Recent reports indicate that terrorists are in the advanced stages of planning attacks against foreigners in Indonesia. These attacks could occur at any time and anywhere, including locations known to be frequented by foreigners." Wow, quite the warning from ...

... but wonder what the hell I was doing here? A group of five other climbers passed me without saying a word, each trapped in their own red faced struggle with Mount Shingle. Dawn had almost arrived, the sky was nearly wall to wall blue and I had failed. So I did what all self respecting Englishmen would do in that position. I cried. Not much, just one tear but it did the job. I got up and by somehow clawing, scuttling and scrambling forward an all fours like some form of man-lizard I ...