The Brel Chronicles

Lessons Learned on the Road – Indonesia

1. If you have to ask “Is that smell us?”  it is.
2. It’s always Happy Hour somewhere.
3. Always carry toilet paper. Yes we’ve learned this one before, but it bears repeating.
4. Expect a power outage at least once a day. Like right now, for examp….
5. Bug spray – don’t leave home without it. Ditto for malaria pills, Immodium, 30 factor sunscreen and Gravol.
6. The amount of weight Mel loses is directly proportional to the amount of weight Brendan gains. He really will eat anything.
7. Eat local. Hamburgers in Flores, Indian food in Gili T, pasta in Tokyo – all bad ideas. Local interpretations can be very, very scary.
8. Lie about your age to fellow travellers. B can pass for 30. Mel likes to think she can pass for 27. Enjoy everyone’s surprise that we married so young. (If any of you are reading this, sorry, but we’re actually 36 and 38.)

   

Best of Indonesia

Highlights

• Ubud – the countryside, the rice paddies, the people
• Escaping the Flores tour and performing the Happy Dance to celebrate the return of electricity, toilets and all the good things in life.
• Dancing at the Jazz Cafe: from salsa to disco, we managed to be so memorable that upon our return a few days later, we were welcomed by the staff with ‘Welcome Home!”
• Healing and purification – from temples, to massages to random healers – Bali really is the massage capital of the world.
• New Year’s eve fireworks on Kuta beach.
• Our private villa in Bali, and some other spectacular spaces.
• The coffee. The micro-brew.
• Being grown up and finally buying local items that don’t fit in our backpack – and sending a container home via ship – real furniture!
• Good time on Gili T

 

Moments we’d rather forget

• Our series of near-death experiences – from winding sheer-drop roads to scorpions to killer night snakes to the world’s largest bees to hungry komodo dragons to bomb threats
• Showing up at 3 pm for our New Year’s eve reservation in Kuta – and finding out it’s for next year.
• Christmas.
• Failing miserably at the 24 hours of silence. Over and over and again. Then just deciding to go into town and have some beers instead.
• A lot of the food.
• Accommodations in Flores and Gili Meno – from cockroaches to bedbugs to filth and mould we won’t even try to describe.
• Early morning wake-ups – from roosters, to motorbikes, to the call for prayer.

 

By the Numbers

• Bintang barometer  (price variance of beer throughout Indonesia) – 23,000 – 60,0000 rupiah for a large beer ($2.50-$7)
• Number of massages: 12 each (price range: – $7-$35 an hour)
• Books read: Mel: 18, Brendan: 3 (which we are actually kind of proud of)

    

Quotable Quotes

“She looks heaps proud”. (Georgia, commenting on Mel’s reaction to Brendan’s disco moves).

We spent the last 2 days of our adventure on Lombok – def not enough time to appreciate all this island has to offer. From tiny pottery, weaving and woodworking villages to stunning turquoise beaches, to traditional villages where the locals live in huts polished with cow dung (seriously), there’s something for everyone. And did we mention the monkey forest? Yay! More monkeys!!!!

    

Lombok is years behind Bali with respect to tourism – though the locals here still do their best to get you to part with your $$$ as quickly as possible. There are some beautiful, unspoiled, undeveloped beaches here – and a new international airport will surely guarantee the growth of tourism. We can’t help but consider the real estate opportunities here. Lombok is certainly on the short-list for the first international BREL property.

We've moved on to the island of Lombok, where we'll be spending most of our time there on the nearby Gili Islands - 3 small islands that ... [Continue reading this entry]

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One other resident of Komodo that we neglected to mention is one of Mel's favourites--monkeys! Long-tailed macaques, to be precise. Here are some of the new friends we made... [Continue reading this entry]

We had some strong feedback on our komodo dragon pics and video, so since we have a good internet connection now and lots of good pics I thought I'd put a few more up for ... [Continue reading this entry]

One of the most unique opportunities we had during our week of Zen was the chance to visit one of Bali's holiest sites: the sacred spring of Tirta Empul. [Continue reading this entry]

The Balinese people's days are filled with ritual and ceremony - in fact it's said that a Balinese woman will spend 25% of her life performing rituals. There are rituals for pregnancy, birth, 42 days ... [Continue reading this entry]

Yoga hurts. Forget what all those hippie types say about increased flexibility and mind/body connection - it just plain hurts. We start our days at the retreat at 7 am with 2 hours of meditation ... [Continue reading this entry]

Thanks to the Oprah book-effect, many of you have probably read Eat, Pray, Love, the story of an American woman traveling for a year hoping to find and re-invent herself. Her travels take her to ... [Continue reading this entry]

As we (way too slowly) made our way back to Bali, we had to oppotunity to spend a few days on Rincca and Komodo Islands - the only places in the world where the komodo ... [Continue reading this entry]

I mean, take a look at THIS rickety old ship! You couldn't PAY me to get on that thing...

Uhhh, wait a minute, that was OUR ship. Our ... [Continue reading this entry]

While staying in a Catholic mission in rural Flores, we were entertained one night by the local children. Some of our fellow travellers were dragged onstage to show their stuff. Enjoy... [Continue reading this entry]

A quick apology for being offline for a bit--it isn't always easy to get connected enough for things like uploading photos in this part of the world. It's not that we don't have lots to ... [Continue reading this entry]

 

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The active volcano Kelimutu is probably the most famous site of any kind on Flores, and really it's the reason I (Brendan) had an interest in Coming to Flores, since my first visit to Indonesia ... [Continue reading this entry]

Just outside the Flores Island hill town of Bajawa are hundreds of traditional communities living much as they did a hundred (or a thousand!) years ago. We were lucky to have the chance to visit a couple of these, home ... [Continue reading this entry]

We interrupt this regularly scheduled blog (which, due to our recent weeks away from the Internet, is a few entries behind) to wish everyone a HAPPY NEW YEAR!