SwiftRambles

Trip At-A-Glance

If you have been a faithful reader of this blog (all two of you!, you would have seen the various at-at-glance summaries we've done for the countries we've visited.  We feel that this blog wouldn't be complete without a final summary. So here it goes!

Continents visited = 5

Countries visited = 16

Planes = 24

Taxis = 79

Buses = 105

Boats = 35

Do cats have memories? - Salt Lake City, Utah, USA

We got back on a Wednesday and then no sooner than the following Monday we had to jet off again. Barely recovered from our jet lag, we braved yet another plane trip.  But this time it was to re-unite with our cat, Guinness, and to visit with Tom's parents, the Witmers, who were gracious enough to cat-sit for nearly a year.

To me, it felt like it was just yesterday when I said goodbye to Guinness the cat but in fact it was Thanksgiving 2009.  I was wondering if he would even remember me - who knows what a cat's memory is like?  But as soon as I saw him he let me pick him up and he tolerated it for all of 5 seconds - which is totally normal.  I think he remembered me! Or at least I chose to believe he does.  And after what I am sure was a terrifying plane ride home, he didn't miss a beat and stepped out of his cat carrier like he owned the place (which in a way, he does).  Very different from his reaction when we took him to the Witmers where he cowered under the bathroom sink for hours.

Here's Guinness in his favorite spot at the Witmers (artwork is John's - he's very talented!).  This place next to the windows allowed Guinness to engage in his favorite hobby, bird-watching:

Oh, and yes, we did visit with Tom's parents while we were in SLC and had a great time.  We went for a quick hike and got to enjoy the fall colors that were already showing up in the mountains of Utah:

Around the World in 80 Pictures

We have been posting our pictures from our trip on flickr and we created one slideshow that covers our whole trip. It was hard to narrow it down to 80 pictures from the over 4000 pictures we uploaded over the course of our trip!

To see our highlights check out the slideshow below or to view it directly on flickr, click here:

And now for the obligatory "before and after" pictures...

Before: Leaving our house with our new haircuts and clean clothes:

After: Taking off from our final stop, Gili Meno, Lombok, Indonesia.  Longer hair, beat-up luggage, and smiles on our faces:

Thanks for reading our blog!  We enjoyed creating it and cherished the feedback we received.  

We still have a few more items to share about life back at home, so stay tuned!

-Tom and Amber

Going home - Incheon Airport, Seoul, Korea

We finally came to the end of our trip.  We were excited to head home, but at the same time sad to end our journey - a mix of emotions for sure.  We said good-bye to our awesome bungalow and began our long journey back to San Francisco.  

Our itinerary was to take a boat to Lombok, get a shuttle bus to Senggigi to chill for lunch, get a ride to the airport, fly to Jakarta, fly to Seoul, Korea, and then fly to San Francisco.  The total travel time: 43 hours!  Amber was a proponent of breaking up the trip for a couple of days, but I wanted to maximize our island time and I made the plans.  

Eco-Antagonistic, Gili Meno, Indonesia

We left Bali for our last stop on our trip: Gili Meno.  It is a tiny island with a population of 400 people with no motorized vehicles and is the quietest and least touristy of the three Gili islands off the coast of Lombok.  

We decided to treat ourselves and stay at an eco-friendly resort that was Lonely Planet's Top Pick.  It was in high demand even though it was not in season and I think we were lucky we got a reservation.  We took the slow boat from Bali to Gili Meno (much cheaper) and landed late in the day.  We then figured out that our place was on the other side of the small island from where we were dropped off.  We decided to forgo the horse and buggy thinking that the small island was smaller than it actually was.  40 minutes of humping our luggage we arrived where the laid back proprietor checked us in and went over about 15 rules of the eco-resort which included not using non-biodegradable soap, being extra quiet in the evening because the wooden structure was loud, not doing your own laundry, and being conservative with water.  Oh and by the way they didn't have fresh water to use for showering or cleaning in the sink because they ran out.  Oh and the bathroom and showers were communal.  Though the lack of water and shared bathrooms kind of deterred us, we decided to give it a try.  

Goldilocks, the beach bum - Padangbai, Bali, Indonesia

Amber loves the beach.  I love the mountains.  On this trip around the world Amber was a great sport in traipsing around mountains like in Patagonia and I feel like made an effort to hit up some beaches.  We tried to mix it up so that we could see some amazing parts of the world and both be happy.

Now, I don't hate the beach, but I get restless.  And I burn if I am out in the sun for more than 20 minutes.  So after getting to the beach, settling down and reading for about 5 minutes, I undoubtedly turn to Amber and say, "How long do you want to stay?"  She of course would like to stay on the beach until it is too dark to find your way back home, so we generally have to compromise...

Throughout our trip we spent time on the beach in Costa Rica, Belize, Brazil, Thailand, and Vietnam.  But poor Amber felt like she had not found the PERFECT BEACH.  Many of the beaches were amazing, but something would be a little off.  I started calling Amber "Goldilocks" because she would say, "this beach is nice, but I wish the water was not so shallow."  Or the water would be too rough, or the beach was not wide enough, or there would be too much trash, or not enough shade, or even too much shade, or too many boats, or too many merchants, or too many hotels, or not enough facilities, or too rocky.  And God forbid if there were JELLYFISH!!!!  Like Goldilocks, she needed to find the beach that was "just right". 

Balinese religion - Bali, Indonesia

One of the aspects that truly strikes a Western visitor to Bali is how religion is infused in everyday life. Most of Indonesia is Muslim, but the majority of the Balinese practice a form of Hinduism.  Celebrations are a huge part of the culture and on our first day we witnessed a religious procession, although I wasn't as quick on the taking the photos as I should have been.





We also got to witness some kind of ceremony that shut down the street we were trying to go down.



These offering boxes were set up for a major holiday that happened right before we arrived and lined many of the streets.

Beautiful views and Bali dancers - Ubud, Bali

In addition to the Enchanted Monkey Forrest, the other main activity to do in Ubud is to see an "authentic" Balinese dance.  We checked out a show one night and it was fairly entertaining even if the music was a little headache-inducing.

This guy looks more than thrilled:



Some dancer shots:

Eat, Pray, Monkey - Ubud, Bali

After hitting the beach in Nusa Lembogan, we headed back to mainland Bali to visit the cultural heart, Ubud.  Ubud is where Elizabeth Gilbert of "Eat, Pray, Love" found herself.  Well, Tom and I found ourselves too... well, we found ourselves seeing some monkeys and doing some cultural excursions.

We first headed to the Enchanted Monkey Forest which is a temple complex with... you guessed it,  a bunch of monkeys!

I spotted my first monkey.  No, wait, that's just Tom.  Easy to get confused.  Isn't his purple poncho just precious?

There were so many monkeys I got a little concerned we would catch some crazy monkey disease, like rabies, monkey flu, or lupus.  Not to worry and some of them were even awfully cute.

Here is a baby monkey nursing:

Chilling on an island next to Bali - Nusa Lembongan, Indonesia

We heard that the big touristy towns on south Bali were a little too much of a party scene so we decided to try the quieter Nusa Lembongan, a smaller island just off the coast of Southeast Bali.  Getting a reservation was not easy, but we secured a place that was associated with a dive shop so that we could do some diving.  We checked into our quaint bungalow which had a giant circular bed (no it didn't rotate) and an outside bathroom/shower. 

The courtyard was well landscaped and very serene.