Travels take 2

8.7- after being dropped at our hotel we tried to go for a little wander in the rain but soon found that there wasn't a whole lot to see. For the first time we were twiddling our thumbs with what to do! We got picked up for dinner and taken back into town, then spent the evening playing cards back in the room.  9.7- After breakfast we left Ruteng for Bajawa. Our first impressions of Flores are that it is very mountainous and beautiful but very rural. We definitely get a lot of stares here due to the lack of tourists! On the way to Bajawa we stopped at an arak processing place. They basically chop fruit that looks like coconuts down from high trees, and then boil the arak multiple times to make it to about 50% alcohol.  We even got to taste some... The 50% was a bit much for me and josh at 10am but of course Lizzie was game. After lunch in Bajawa we went to the small traditional village of Bena.  This was a bit weird as it feels odd wandering around looking at people going about the

5.7 - we had another early start for our boat trip around Komodo national park. We were sorely disappointed when we reached the boat, which was worse than expected. Luckily we had a good group of people, us and another English guy, 2 Aussie guys and a not so great Taiwanese couple. The crew didn't speak a single word of English, and the boat chugged along at what felt like 3mph. However when we eventually arrived at Rinca island, we were lucky to see some pretty big Komodo dragons that were lazing around near the camp. We did a little walk up to a viewpoint before heading back to the boat.  As we chugged on to Komodo island we had lunch of rice, vegetables and fried fish (including the heads, ew.). As it is mating season we were warned that the dragons tend to go off into the jungle, so were unlikely to see them. We did a little trek (complete again with guide with wooden stick) and were lucky to see a couple of small dragons strolling around.  We also saw a very very old, thin one

2.7- we got the very sweaty boat back from Gili T and then got a transfer to Ubud. We had some lunch and then wandered to find accommodation, and we ironically ended up at the same place Harriet and I stayed 3 years ago. Once again not much has changed, so we had swim to cool down and watched the monkeys playing on the roof of the building. We found a cooking class for the next day and spent some time wandering the lovely streets and markets of Ubud. We had a really nice dinner in one of the little restaurants, which felt like a splurge meal at a whole £6 for dinner and a drink! Mine was a delicious beef redang with all sorts of stuff with it.  3.7- we were up quite early to be picked up for the market tour and cooking class. The guide was very good at pointing everything out in the local market and even bought us some local snacks to try.  We then went to his house where he explains all about the Balinese houses and how coconut oil is made. We also got to have a go at making Balinese

We headed straight to Sanur from Denpasar airport to catch the boat to the island of Nusa Lembongan. As I wasn't feeling well, Josh and Lizzie were gems and searched out a fab place to stay and scouted out the dive schools. We had a lush little bamboo hut with outdoor bathroom, it was so nice to have our own space :) the rest of the day was spent relaxing after the last night of travelling.  We had a good lie in, got some breakfast and then did some more travel life admin... Booking a boat, dives and finding somewhere to do laundry. We had a pretty chilled day on the beach, so we decided to rent paddle boards to take out as the sun set. A little kid on the beach got some great photos on lizzies camera, however we made a bit of an error by going out just as it got to low tide, meaning we all had to scramble back in over spiky coral trying to get back to the beach!  The next day was diving day. We got kitted out with gear and eventually managed to get going once the tide had come in

Bukit Lawang, Sumatra  24.6- we got up bright and early ready for the '7.30am' start.... Only to be told that we then weren't leaving until 9.30. Not the best start but finally the rest of our group arrived ( 2 Indian guys and 1 Nepal/Austrian girl) and we set off. There was a lot of up and down as we walked further into the jungle, and about an hour in we saw our first orangutan. She was clearly not fazed by humans and it was amazing to watch her swinging about in the trees.  We carried on and stopped for a delicious fresh fruit stop- pineapple, bananas, passionfruit and watermelon. We continued our trek and stopped at a high up lunch spot- the guides just kept producing food from their backpacks!  We had just finished when the guides started to say "Mina's coming". Now apparently Mina is an aggressive orangutan, so they chuck fruit skins for her, to distract her from the tourists... However we saw no aggression and they continued to throw fruit for both her