Month: March 2016

Back to traveling in style. Twenty-four hours later I was reunited with one of my favourite people on the planet…

…Tuva!!!! One of my very best friends for the past 24 years. Fourteen years ago we traveled to Australia together and she got left behind 🙁

She ended up marrying John (it doesn’t get more Australian than this, beer and bbq), which resulted in…

…this one! Adorable little Myles and subsequently also…

…this one! Tuva and John named him Morris but he’s not having it, he only listens to Robin, since he is Batman’s sidekick.

I take it back, it actually gets more Australian than John drinking beer at the bbq. Close to their house you can go kangaroo and…

…koala spotting!!! Doesn’t he look adorably melancholic or maybe buddhistic?

Then there is surfer spotting…

…beach walking…

…and hiking behind waterfalls in subtropical rainforests. Tuva surely got everything Australian covered.

They spoilt us rotten with wine, cheese, beer, bbq, Swedish licorice (!) and heaps of fantastic food.

But best of all was to just hang out and stay up talking all night long. The highlight of the trip! Miss you <3

We also had the pleasure to meet up with our dear friend Christina and her adorable mini-me Digby. She came all the way from Bundaberg, several hours drive up the coast. We first met while camel trekking in India 13 years ago and has kept in touch ever since. She has visited us in Stockholm and we have met up in the UK several times. She now took us around her former hoods in Brisbane, where we visited independent book shops and looked at beautiful old Queensland houses, she surely knows what we like!

Unfortunately it is difficult to get a boat over to Australia so, again, we had to resort to flying. Very uncivilized.

We flew to Cairns and then took the boat to Green Island, smack in the middle of the Great Barrier Reef.

And were greeted by this fella… 

…and a ridiculous amount of aquarium looking fish.

Naturally, we went snorkeling. It is like a magnificent colour explosion, fireworks and kaleidoscopes under the surface. We saw sharks, turtles, snakes (!), clown and parrot fishes, rays flying out of the water and a multitude of other surreal looking corals and fish.

During the day the island is busy with day trippers. There is one hotel and only the few remaining hotel guests are allowed in the evening, making it a Crusoe-esque experience.

It took about 30 minutes to walk around the whole island.

Joen used to think sunsets were banal. Luckily he has now grown out of his emo stage and rather enjoys them, especially these 80’s looking paradise poster types.

We were a bit tired of traveling so after Christopher left we rented a beautiful teak house in Ubud, surrounded by volcanoes, palm trees…

…and rice fields.

We stayed for a month, reading an obscene amount of books, studying…

…and writing all day long on the veranda.

We had occasional social interactions though, such as the baptism (Balinese equivalent) of Ketut’s (our landlady, to the left in white) nephew.

Here is the lovely little family, Ilu is Ketut’s half sister. They were so welcoming and sweet, me and Ilu were on hair braiding terms within minutes.

Joen dressed up for the occasion, and was much appreciated by the ladies I might add.

But the best thing about this little travel break is that we got to hang out with these two everyday!!!! Ping ping to the left and her daughter Siti to the right. Ping ping might not be the prettiest girl on the block, but has a heart of gold and laughed euphorically with her whole face every morning we got up. Siti has a terrific sense of humour, loves to dance and eats like a wolf. I could almost give up nomadism to be able to hang out with them.

And here is our VIP date! We met up in Bali and traveled over the Wallace line , over to the much more undisturbed beaches of Lombok. We were so happy to see our Christopher (or Chrille as we call him), although it doesn’t really show here (it is the only photo of the two of us). We had not seen Chrille in 3 months, Bali in 7 years and Lombok in 13 years. We have many fond memories of them all.

We spent lazy days on Selong Belanak, reading, walking…

…watching the sunsets…

…and the lovely water buffaloes walking by twice a day. I love water buffaloes!!! We rarely holiday at beaches (boring), but always make an exception when it comes to Indonesia. Staying at an excellent hotel is absolutely vital if we are to endure a beach venture though, which we succeeded in marvellously at Sempiak villas.

The jungle was obviously calling us, so we then traveled up to the rainforests in northern Lombok. I pretended to walk in Alfred Russel Wallace’s footsteps. A remarkable man, who co-discovered natural selection and of course the Wallace line.

We had a magnificent jungle view by the foot of Gunung Rinjani, the second highest of Indonesia’s many volcanoes…

…and experienced the most fabulous monsoon rains, we all love weather with a bit of character.

We naturally needed to climb the volcano, it was highly recommended to do it in two days, but since we bloody hate camping we decided to do it in one day. It started of beautifully through thick and misty jungle…

… and savannah looking nature the higher up we got…

..until we reached the rim of the crater. The lake is the floor of an inactive gigantic volcano, with a smaller active volcano growing (yes, they grow!) inside it. There had recently been an eruption and smoke was still coming out of it. Such fascinating things, volcanoes! We were absolutely exhausted for days after this excruciating hike, after a few days recuperating in Ubud (Bali) Chrille flew back home to the cold north.