I’m back!!

Bali food

I can’t believe the past few weeks have flown by so quickly. We just arrived back this morning after a 16 hour flight. (Well, it was one flight of 2.45 hours and one flight of 13 hours with an hour in between to be exact).

And how pathetic am I to be behind the computer already now… I actually need to do something to keep myself awake. We arrived early in the morning here at 7 am, so in light of trying to minimize the jetlag we need to stay awake until at least 8 pm and preferably later.

I will be updating the photos on the previous blogposts, to make them a little bit more attractive and thanks everyone so much for the lovely comments during my time away. I have been reading them while on vacation; just couldn’t answer. And thanks again to Olga, for her guestpost!

As I said before; Indonesia was fantastic, although the last couple of days in Bali were almost like a reversed culture shock. I knew that Bali would be touristic, but after having seen absolutely NO tourists for the past three weeks it was a complete shock to all of us that there were hordes and hordes of tourists on Bali. My goodness… I had never realized it would be this bad. To be frank a bit too much for my taste. On the plus side though; since Bali is a much richer island then the Sunda islands we visited before, the food was also much much better. Larger choice and better restaurants, but given the choice I would not go to Bali again probably. It’s just too much overflown with tourism. Quite a shame really as the people are lovely and the Hindu religion gives it a special feel. I love all the little temples, the endless array of offers you find on the streets in front of every shop, restaurant or other business (for good luck) and all the other little things that make this island special, despite the tourists.

It was lovely to relax in a luxury environment for the last couple of days, after having slept in the rather spartan monastery, getting up at 2.30 am to see a sunset to name just one of the things we did, but I would hate to have been to Bali for three weeks as that – to me – is not the real Indonesia.

I am really glad we got to see the other side of things before we went to Bali. It makes you appreciate the things in life so much more. Travel like this puts us right back on our feet. We are sooo incredibly spoiled here in the west; taking things like good food and hot showers for granted. We got into a discussion the other day with one of our group who started talking about animal welfare (which; quite frankly is non-existent in most parts of Indonesia) and the fact that we should all treat animals as equals. Or something along those lines.

At which our groupleader said that you have to see things in perspective; in Holland they use an ambulance to pick up a little sparrow that got wounded, while in Indonesia they don’t even have an ambulance to pick up wounded people!

I am a real animal lover, but having travelled to many Asian countries I have begun to see a different view too. And you can even argue what is better for the animal; the chickens that we have seen had all the space in the world. Literally could run around entire villages before – at some point – being brutally butchered for food. They had a life that is good, looking for their own food, raising little chicks. While some of the chickens we have here are packed together on a square meter, never know how to walk and are butchered when 6 weeks old. I mean; who is the crueler person here??

Anyway, it is what it is and I am glad we do not have to eat our cats and dogs here, just to get some meat… Let’s put it like that!

I’ve just been quickly browsing through my photos and have put a small sample of them here, just so you get a taste of beautiful Indonesia. We’ve seen very lush green fields to very dry and barren lands.

Gone from real cold in the mountains to incredibly hot on Sumbawa and Flores. I am glad we have a more moderate climate here to be honest…

We have also visited the Sacred Monkey Forest on Bali (close to Ubud) and maybe you didn’t know but I have a soft spot for monkeys…. I just think they are the absolute cutest animals… I know they can be pains in the behinds as well, racking stuff, stealing things, being almost like bad behaved children in a lot of cases and too clever for their own good quite often too. Tom is really not too fond of them, ever since he got chased by a macaque.

I never feed them so I am just not interesting for them I guess. Which is good, as that means I get to take photos of them instead!

Baby macaques

I mean who can resist those little baby faces??

I know I can’t…

Anyways; I could go on and on and one and on about the things we experienced and the things we did, but I won’t bore you any longer. You might think this blog was not about food at all.

As of next week it will be back to the regular things and I am actually looking forward to being able to cook something again… Hmmm… no noodles for a while though!

I will be visiting all your blogs again in the very near future to. Got a loooot of catching up to do!

Sun up on Kelimutu volcano

Kecak fire dance on Bali

Related posts:

Related Posts:

• The non-existence of the Costa Rican kitchen
• Feeling hot, hot, hot
• Flores island and Komodo dragons…
• On Sumbawa
• Tetebatu

Tagged as: cute, food, indonesia, monkeys, travel