homeward bound

our journey back to DC (bali->singapore -> (24hours) -> hongkong -> sanfrancisco -> DC -> ourcondo) begins in an hour which means, of course, our honeymoon has come to a close ...

all in all, better than we could have hoped for. hope you enjoyed the stories and pics, they were fun to share.

bali

we're loving life here and cath has inquired about residing in our private villa on permanent basis. a few pics from bali ...


cannonball into our tiny private pool in seminyak, bali

little surfer girl in bali ...

little surfer boy ...

exploring a hindu temple in ubud

(sarongs required - unfortunately)

*** we updated the hanoi post with a picture:
hanoi link

hiking, sleeping, eating

so the 2am wakeup call for the sunrise "trek" up to mt. batur was well worth the effort. watching the sun rise was one of the most beautiful scenes we've ever witnessed. props to our fellow honeymoonin' friends, brian and theresa, for the solid recommendation.

the mtn we hiked was a bit smaller than the one in the immediate foreground, which is 3000m high (i may have made that up). the peak in the distance is lombok, the island to the east of bali and another traveller hotspot. the hike itself was quite unique. we hiked in the dark for 2 hours on lava ash from a recent volcano. we were finally able to use the headlights we brought, visible in the photo taken by our dutch friend, michael (his 6ft4in frame is providing the shadow).

when the sun rose, the landscape looked like the moon and a troupe of monkeys came over to join our morning breakfast. all in all, a very memorable experience.

after a 3hr nap, we pampered ourselves with 1hr foot massages and a manicure for cath. we ended the day with dinner at Mozaic, which was the only restaurant in Southeast Asia selected as one of Les Grandes Tables du Monde and to have it’s wine list awarded by Wine Spectator.
so we gorged ourselves and got really wasted (j/k).

definitely a nice exclamation point of a day ...

paradise found

cheesy title, i know, but appropriate for this place. we're currently in the island of bali in the town of ubud, which is the curtural and artistic center of bali. we were in jimbaran, another town in bali, at a super nice resort for 4 nights before taking a 2 hour taxi ride here. i think we've mentioned how insane the traffic is in SE asia - too many vehicles and too little rules. somehow it works. until we hired a private taxi from our luxury resort to take us to ubud. yup, he rear-ended someone, sending our flip-flops flying into the front seat. he appeared nonplussed and excused himself to deal w/ the irate women in the struck car. both parties talked on their cell phones for about 10 minutes. our driver returned and apologized for the delay, though he never offered an explanation or apology for the crash. after dropping us off at our hotel, he left me a business card and told us to call should we need further transport. um, no.

our days in jimbaran consisted of sleeping late in our extremely comfortable bed, walking down the beach to get our meals. restaurants have tables on the beach, facing the ocean, which make for great people and sunset watching. they serve fresh fish, which you can select and have grilled for you. we tried tuna, red snapper, mahi mahi. all delicious and for only 6 bucks. not a bad day. also did some ferocious boogie boarding, which impressed the locals. east coast reprazentin'.

one other note about bali - the weather is perfect: 80 and sunny. it's a welcome respite from the heat and humidity of mainland SE asia. on our way to to the airport leaving nam, it was 88 degrees at 9pm.

we spend 2 more nights in ubud before returning to the beaches of bali. we're going on a sunset hike tomorrow morning. our wake-up call is at 2am (!). the sunrise over the island and sea should be worth it.

other than that, with the backpacking portion of our trip over and the honeymoon phase of the honeymoon beginning in earnest, we're happy to enjoy ourselves and recount the craziness that's happened in the past few weeks and, indeed, the past few months ...