Casablanca Hotel&Restaurant Lombok

... and when I arrived to their viewpoint my jaw dropped. In the middle of the huge volcanic rim where I now stood was an active volcano oozing lava surrounded by an emerald green crater lake. There was a constant roaring sound that was like a cross between the ocean, thunder, and a jet engine coming from this cauldron of magma and I sat down on the edge of the rim unable to look away for quite some time. Eventually the sun set over a sea of ...

New friends Jules and Louise from Manchester UK and I hiked about 5 km straight up a near-vertical road to go to Ashtari restaurant-- the view is overwhelming and more than makes up for the very, very Bule oriented food. Everybody loved it but me-- a little yuppified (by my account) health food, although the Australian owners are supposed to be terrific people and pillars of the local ...

... with haphazard development, wires running everywhere, shops of all sorts lining the streets, overcrowded streets mixed between cars, bikes, pedestrians and horse carriages and really has nothing to offer. Moving our way directly east of Mataram we came across the "Lychee Strech". For some reason, there were at least 25 straight lychee stands along the side of the road. Contrasted with the lush green background that exists everywhere on ...

... na Floresu to byla docela prijemna zmena, a tak jsme zustali 4 dny. Je tu docela hodne prodavacu vseho mozneho a spousta turistu si stezovalo, ze jim kazi dovolenou, to ovsem nebyli v Indii na skoleni! Nam ani moc nevadili, spis nas to obcas pobavilo, jako napriklad jeden, co si rikal Rambo a prifaril se k nam jeden vecer v restauraci. Nejdriv jsme si jen tak povidali a postupem casu se pokousel pozvat se na drink, bezuspesne. :-) Pujcili jsme si skutr a vyrazili ...

... the audience to try one. Erin of course was the volunteer. In India when we had done this we basically sat near the potter as he made the pot. This time Erin really did make the majority of the thing, and it was a complicated process. The woman would demonstrate, give Erin a try, and then fix up whatever she had done. We stopped at the strangely named "Perama Docking," which was basically a ship-building site. Perama has emerged as a massive tourist ...

... which point we HAD to fly to Singapore, from which we were flying onto Perth. Any thought of budgeting was thrown to the wind at this point, and we decided that rather than take the slow boat to Bangsal at 7am, and faff around getting buses and boats and buses to get to Kuta, we'd fly instead. This is incredibly lazy of us, but it was so cheap that we though, feck it! So, on the Friday, after nearly four weeks in Gili T, we had a mass farewell outside the dive shop, and me ...

... time diving on sites with great coral life and fish including loads of turtles, black tip and white tip sharks. We saw our first ever tiny tiny Pygmy Seahorse. That was a very special moment as we had wanted to see one ever since we started diving back in 2003. Around full moon time we also got to see the massive Bumphead Parrot Fish. What a sight that was following all 16 of them until we had run out of air, basically! We did a ...

... From the moment we got to Lombok, we realised that we had picked a really good time to come, as it was Ramadan - the Muslim festival - and songs filled the air, continually, day and night. It was brilliant! We woke to the call to prayer and we went to sleep to the call to prayer. The staff at the Qunci were unbelievable, as they catered to our every wish. We had our very own staff members who looked after us for our entire stay. Kuching started work at 6am-3pm and ...

... hours to get to 2 square kilometers of paradise. Picture it: Tropical Island. Palm trees. 27 degrees (Celsius, yes) crystal, turqqqquoise water. Thatched restaurant platforms with big cushions, 4 metres from the sea. 2km Coral reef wall to snorkel within swimming/floating distance of beach. Sunsets that make postcards redundant. Jealous? And for about £2.50 a night, you should be. The Gili's have long been ...

... quite nice when not tipping it down - good views across the lake, nice walks etc etc). The reason for staying at this hotel was the proximity to Mt Batur & the walking trail up to the peak. Mt Batur is one of the volcanos on Bali & is the second highest point at 1700 feet above sea level. The lake itself is at 1100 feet above sea level. Mt Batur is popular for sunrise climbs so the closer you are to the start point the later you can wake up. My ...