Bali & Lomboc rides

We just finished riding around Bali and Lomboc - what a world of difference between the two!  Bali is geared for the tourists with all the amenities and Loboc had nothing, unless you count two surfing beaches, neither of which is easy to get to.

The ride around Bali was beautiful with many lovely green terraced rice fields being plowed by oxen, hundreds of beautiful Hindu/animist temples, CLEAN sand beaches that we camped on just about every night, friendly people many of whom spoke at least some English (to our benefit), and on every beach were many fishing boats.  It was really need to see them shove off at night and return in the morning with their catches:  long narrow boats with bamboo outriggers on them for stablity and small outboard motor, some had a single small sail.  It was  warm ride but it didn't seem as bad as Thailand, maybe because we rode along the coast for 99% of the ride, were able to go for a swim and wash the sweat and road grime off each night and watch the stars.

Lomboc was like a different country:  very poor, hardly anyone spoke English, very dirty villages and cities, trash everywhere even on the unpopulated beach areas.  Lomboc is very predominately Muslim so we missed finding a beer for the week we were there.  Everywhere we went there were Mosques under construction and many very close to another one.  I don't begrudge them their mosques / religion but it seems like a bit few mosques and money spent on health care/ environment care would be better spent.  There never seemed anyone in the mosques even when the call to prayer goes off.  Actually the call to prayer is quite soothing we have found.

The only really unfortunate happening was that someone stole Sally's bike shoes the first night on Lomboc.  We were camped in a field with the owners permission and never thought we'd have a problem.  Bikes, stove, pots/pans, my shoes etc were not touched.  We filed a police report but really didn't expect any positive solution. 

Everywhere we have riden here we were greeted by "hello mister" - even Sally.  At first it was funny but after two weeks it has gotten a bit old.  We are at Padangbai, a bit east and north of Kuta and Denpasar after returning from Lomboc yesterday.  A wonderful laid back village with beer and relatively cheap food/lodging. Taking a rest day here and may try to get into Denpasar tomorrow to see if we can find some shoes for Sally - just in case the ones that are being sent from her stock of shoes at home don't arrive.  We also hope to get up to Ubud which is another tourist area but strong on the culture aspect of tourism so maybe we'll get some Balinese cultural education.

Indonesia has been great but we are ready to get back to BKK and heading to Laos, plan to take the night train from BKK to Vietienne and start riding towards Vietnam.  Right now we leave Indo on the 7th.  I left my camera cable in Kuta where we stayed for two nights when we first arrived so it will be a few days before we get any photos posted.   We are both healthy, slimmed down a bit and doing fine - other than missing some snow!!

Stan & Sally

Thailand

We completed a week in Thailand riding the east coast towards Cambodia.  After 4 days we arrived in Ban Phe and decided to call it.  We've found almost no campsites without lots of work, nothing much for signs in English, locals are extremely unhelpful (we did find 2!!), polite but not helpful, no one smiles (even the tourists) and it's hot, really hot.  Although I, Stan, can handle the heat it's been really hard on Sally.  We talked long and hard if we should head directly to Laos or backpedel and go to Indonesia.  Even tho' it involves two more flights (return trip to BKK) we'll head to Bali and try for Sulawesi for about 3 weeks.  Hopefully this will be the last of the flights until we come home.

Yesterday we took the boat over to Ko Samet island and rode the only road on the island 7km to the south end.  It was again hot but at least we were able to swim at 4 different beaches on the way back so that was nice. Place was full of tourists:  Thai, German, Russian especially.  A plus was we took the 6pm boat back and sat on top, although they didn't really like it, and got a sunset cruise out of it.  Accomodation was fairly cheap there but there was nothing to make either of us really want to spend any time there.

Our thoughts for now is once we get back to BKK we'll bus to Vietienne (the floods don't seem to affect transport this direction south or towards Vietienne) and bike to Vietnam.  We gettting tired of all the people and hope that once we escape here crowds will die down somewhat - although I'm sure we'll see plenty in Indonesia.  Mainly the hope is once we hit Laos it will be more rural and enjoyable.  Overall things have been going well, we are still healthy and bikes are running well.

Stan