Indonesia

I can't make up my mind about Indonesia. Its had the best and worst accomodation, some of the hardest travelling, nicest places and complete slums. Its got unspoilt jungle except for the swarms of mutant bees hovering around your face, and I suppose that is actually natural. Huge volcanoes. Ancient temples that have nothing to do with the muslim/christian people - Borobudur and Prambanan. Bali, a tourist tout's dream. And lots of geckos. Geckos are really cool, one turns up in the room and ten minutes later all those annoying mozzies have been eaten.

Bali

So much for the plan! We went to the east side, changed our minds, went to the north, then to the south. For an island only 40 miles long it really shouldn't take 4 hours to get one side to the other. The north was really nice - maybe 10% full, with huge discounts on all the hotels. But it had black sand beaches that just looked dirty. We went on a dolphin trip, except the boat broke down and went around in circles for 2 hours.
I'm down in Kuta at the moment, Liz has just flown back to London. Its quite busy, but most of it is desperate hawkers who do not take no for an answer. It can get quite annoying, the sheer persistance of some of their attempts. Like moneychangers who keep saying "is that enough?" when they've given you half the ammount - they don't expect to get away with that one, they just want to wear down your defences so they can shuffle some money back to them (and they did even though I was watching carefully- bizarrely though, we went back and complained and got most of it back). Its a different attitude out here - no one is ripped off, but some people are better hagglers than others.
Having said that, its a very nice beach down here, lovely sea, very cheap accomodation (5 pounds a night double room/bathroom/swimming pool), very cheap and very nice food, a steady 32'C at midday... Ah well, its only money, isn't it?
I'm now planning on doing some diving. Well, some chilling out, then some diving.