Ubud to Amed Our hotel in the “Ubud area” is called “Payangan Hideaway”. They were not kidding – the place was tucked deep in the hills, up and down twisty country lanes, pass myriad rice fields and banana groves. When we got there it was almost dark and we were seriously wondering if we’d ever […]
Posts under ‘travel’
Jeju and Bali: a tale of two islands (3.2)
Journey to the northwest. Pemuteran We did not make it the temple that perched on the cliff at Uluwatu, famous for its “naughty” monkeys (watch out for your sandals and sunglasses tourists!), just a little bit more south. But we went to another iconic temple by the sea, this one sitting on a rock that […]
Jeju and Bali: A tale of two islands (3.1)
3. Bali I had seen terraced rice paddies before, in Southern China, not the really famous spots, but pretty nonetheless. I had seen temples and shrines, erected in the names of different religions and beliefs, some of them still being worshipped, some in ruins. I had seen classically cone shaped volcanos, over a flight above Central […]
Jeju and Bali: a tale of two islands (2)
2. In transit: a sobering realization It took us over 30 hours to get to Bali from Jeju. This long journey definitively proved a very sad fact: we are no longer spring chickens. Not that it really required proving, after all one excuse for the trip was to celebrate a certain birthday (which signified my […]
Jeju and Bali: a tale of two islands (1)
This is a trip of two islands, thousands of miles away from each other. Both volcanic in origin; both beautiful, in unexpected ways; both touristy, while honoring traditional ways of living, to different degrees; both were once colonized, and even experienced different versions of “anti-communist” inspired atrocities after their countries’ independence. Those are the similarities […]
Back from Asia
I was away in Asia for less than two weeks: Singapore, then Thailand. It seemed longer though – it was such a different world, that coming back I felt a little disoriented. The first night I was back, I had a dream… A dream I was with Nainai, in a little long tail boat. We […]
Porto
We had come to our last stop – Porto, the second largest city in Portugal. In three hours, the train had traveled up half of the country’s length. We arrived in Porto late in the afternoon, in golden sunlight. Crossing the river Douro on a high bridge, we had a first glimpse at the city […]
Lisboa
We could have explored Andalucía more, but being greedy we decided to add a couple of cities in Portugal to our itinerary as well. To get to Lisboa from Sevilla we first took the high speed train to Madrid, where we spent the afternoon at the Prado. The Prado is an amazing museum, very compact […]
Sevilla
Sevilla is the capital of Andalucía. It is supposed to embody everything Andalcían – Flamenco, bull fights, late night partying, etc. (which seemed the very image of Spain, in most tourists’ minds). In our brief stay here we did not experience any of that, but some quite different aspects of Sevilla, both old and new. […]
Tarifa to Tanger: two continents
Another bright and sunny day on the costa de la luz (coast of light), we arrived in Tarifa, the southernmost point in Spain (and Europe). Wind turbines lined the coast as we approached “Europe’s windsurf and kitesurf capital”. It’s windy here, much like where we now call home. But it was a pleasant wind, not […]