Below Belief

Tugu Lombok

2012-05-23T23:03:36Z

The best hotel I’ve ever stayed at. The most perfect end to a great holiday.

You wish for tea, they bring you it on a tray, to the beach, with snacks.

Dinner on the beach?

Dining room overshadowed by giant rooster:

More tea

Spa in an old Hindu temple:

Yoga studio (we appropriated)

Buddha looks out:

Giant rooster

Big pool

Beach lazing

Dinner

Amazing sunsets

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That’s better

2012-05-22T10:58:43Z

Sunbathing, Lombok style!

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Airport hotel in Bali

2012-05-22T00:44:03Z

Around Denpasar airport on Bali is Kuta – one of the cheap parts of Bali. The hotels here pretend to be luxury resorts but are really glorified backpacker hotels. We checked into the Holiday Inn Baruna resort – which has that classic overdone open air reception place which looks magical on arrival but fronts a prison-like monstrosity of a resort complex. We had only 5 hours to spend here owing to our arrival at 1am and our earlier than hoped for pick up at 7am for the boat to Lombok (where we hope the fun stuff starts).

Hotel has no king room, only twin. And they can’t change. They failed to collect us at the airport as arranged. The room is ok but the sink drain smells, the hair dryer doesn’t work and the sink is falling out of the surround.

And now the 7am pickup hasn’t showed…. Just go with the flow, and things will improve…

But seriously, Holiday Inn Baruna – sort your quality assurance out.

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Seoul

2012-05-21T02:27:47Z

We’re finishing up out three days in Seoul – amazing bustling modern city with lofty ambitions and very clean. We had an interesting day yesterday visiting the DMZ zone between north and south Korea – crazy military stuff.

Now onwards to Bali for a final fling.

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Breakfast for 2, Onsen Ryokan style

2012-05-15T22:58:52Z

We found an amazing spa town where you wander around in kimonos and clogs moving between got spring baths! This is more like it. Also traditional ryokan hotel has incredible, if “tentacle” heavy food for breakfast and dinner. Futons still hard!

This is the amazing (though sometimes hard to stomach breakfast). Amazing place. Loving it now.

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Kyoto and Japan

2012-05-15T01:47:34Z

We’re now leaving Kyoto and enroute to Hiroshima via bullet train.

We’re travelling with the bags which is never too much fun but the Japanese rail system is impressive by any standard and so doing a trip like we’re doing (Kyoto to Hiroshima for lunch, a few hours to look around the atomic bomb memorial, and then back on a train for 3 hours to a small place called Kinosaki-onsen (on the north coast, north of Osaka) is definitely do-able. We have JR rail passes and the process for getting booked onto the right trains took just a few minutes – with a Japanese booking clerk whose fingers flew over the keys of her keyboard to get us on each of the right trains. Like I said, impressive.

In the end we “got Kyoto” and enjoyed our time there. We took it slowly – not giving in to the “temple-itus” that a lot of tourists seem to have. As you can see below, we admired their temples to consumerism (actually they were quite revolting). the city scopes at night as well as the temples, the zen gardens and the Geishas (entertainment girls, heading to dinners).

Here’s a Geisha, on her way to dinner. The sawn-off flip-flops they wear look painful and the preparation of all that make-up intense…

Our “love shack”, we stayed in a small holiday rental above the workshop of an apparently famous Japanese potter (who has pieces in the British Museum, no less and makes reproduction Japanese pottery with a very specific blue glaze that no one else can make). That unfortunately didn’t stop his place being old-fashioned, dirty and a bit of an uncomfortable place to stay - especially with the wooden beams positioned carefully at a 6″ height…

The “futon on the floor” dream of the Japanese home was lost on us….

But the Zen gardens were something else – and we even saw a man painstakingly remaking one… the calm returned:

In the big department stores though, the sell was heavy and full-on. Toilets?

After a while we just wanted to be sick:

The night scape was cool, here taken from a walkway in one of the big hotels overlooking Kyoto:

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Japan and struggles

2012-05-12T05:39:47Z

We are, if we’re honest, struggling a little bit with Japan. We’re in Kyoto, it’s cold and the place we’re staying is one step up from a caravan (we didn’t know this until we arrived…). There are parts to the city which are amazing – the temples and the Geisha district – but a lot of the rest of it reminds me of a Swiss ski resort (the concrete 60s looking type). Everything is very small (so I often bang my head) and there are people everywhere, queuing for things… I don’t think the “lost decade” has been much good for architecture in Japan – everything seems a bit run down.

Anyway, we make the best of it. We are sunning ourselves on top of a pagoda overlooking the city and reading books, getting zen. Thinking of home (and Bali!)

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Japan enthralls

2012-05-09T13:41:09Z

We're in Japan – 2 days in. Time here is mostly spent going "WOW" as the latest craziness is observed. It's curiously similar to any big city on the outside, the small details are what make it incredible. It's tiring, busy, chaotic and sometimes confusing but it's very entertaining and the Japanese are friendly, smiley, reserved, graceful and very homogenous at times.

The toilets are something else. Especially when you press the wrong button and get surprised!

We are somewhat alien here, being both Tall and Large:

Drinking Sake!

The food is pretty much universally amazing:

Temples (everywhere!)

And crowds, crazy crowds in places. In other places it's quiet, almost too quiet:

See the full gallery on Posterous

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Lao Novice Monks, Laos | Travel Blog

2012-05-06T10:05:10Z

http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Laos/West/Luang-Prabang/blog-428931.html

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LivingLand experience in Luang Prabang

2012-05-06T07:58:46Z

It’s rare to get a truly inspirational experience – but Living Land is one. It’s an organic farm community project on the outskirts of Luang Prabang, Laos. It was set up by Mark, an English gentlemen who they said has supported more than 80 Lao children through education and into jobs within the community.

We met members of the community who started out life as poor Hmong villagers with slash and burn agricultural practices, no education and no way out of their existence. Through the help of the Living Land community (and the temples), they have been educated in the ways of organic, sustainable farming and rice growing – and found self-esteem and empowerment, even university careers. There are 40-50 people working on the farm who otherwise wouldn’t have jobs. Incredible support! The experience was great – learn how to grow rice in 14 easy steps, very hands on, using original and ancient techniques. Ploughing the field with Susan the buffalo was hilarious.

This is one experience not to miss (and you get to eat the rice products at the end too!)

By selling high-end organic, mostly European-species of salad and herbs to the nice hotels in Luang Prabang, and offering tours around their farm to tourists, they can fund their existence as well as doing outreach projects in the Hmong villages, looking for talented young kids with the right attitude but lacking the opportunity of any education. By educating these youngsters they help their families to grow out of poverty and adopt organic, sustainable techniques.

Positive and life-affirming day out!

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