Volcanos!!

Ok so now I'm the big 50 I'm meant to appreciate culture!!

Should be mighty mariners!!  No wonder I had trouble sleeping!

We tried Simons cupboard game to no avail!  Never mind Simon where ever you are!

Arriving at the train station in Yogyakarta was a bit surreal. A layer of ash covered everything as evidence of the still erupting Mt Merapi. Although it’s usually a busy tourist destination most of the tourists had been evacuated so it was just us hardy backpackers and a few random Germans, not that there‘s anything wrong with random Germans of course! Respect for race and diverity and all that! Unfortunately due to the volcano many of the tourist attractions were closed as there were within the 20k safety zone but we did manage a bit of culture, visiting the Sultans palace which was slightly underwhelming and also a batik factory, where I swore that I wasn’t going to buy anything and came out with a present for Louise. They know I’m an easy touch. The next day due to it being my birthday and to celebrate somehow reaching such a great age, I managed to persuade Roberta and Heather that cycling 40k in the heat and with crazy traffic was a great idea. We cycled merrily along to the Prambanan, a 6^th/7^th century Hindu temple. Along the way motorists stopped their cars to take videos of us no doubt impressed by our turn of speed! The temple was actually very impressive and extremely well restored. The gardens were also bizarrely similar to Chatsworth which made me long for the English countryside somewhat. Yogyakarta was overall a very pleasant city with a good feel to it and hopefully it will recover soon and the tourists return.  There was just one bad note for me, inadvertantly I found myself sleeping on a Man Utd mattress, not amused, the mighty Mariners would have been better!

We caught a free train to Solo the next day. Not used to getting something for nothing it took a lot to persuade us that it was really free and even then we weren’t really convinced. Expecting to be be thrown off at any time. However we arrived safely for a quick overnight stop in a quaint hotel. Confined to base due to a massive tropical storm dinner proved to be most amusing. First Heather stated “ I’ve never had a boiled egg before, I’m actually a bit scared!”, then I proceeded to eat a whole green chilli thinking it was asparagus and nearly passed out and lastly Ben tried to eat an ice cube, got brain freeze and had to run around the hotel for ten minutes refusing to spit it into a napkin “ because I need that for my toilet roll”. Roberta just rolled her eyes. We’re getting more sophisticated by the day! It’s only a matter of time before hotels refuse to take us.




So an overnight bus driven by a pair of maniac drivers has bought us to Lovina on the north coast of Bali. Myself, Ben and Roberta got up at the crack of dawn to watch the dolphins swimming and go snorkeling.  Very worthwhile as we saw dozens of dolphins including one which did a nifty spin for us and then did it again to make sure we had seen. So I need to add dolphins to my list of creatures to take home!  Lovina is a quiet resort with the only sound the calls of the beach traders “ Lesley, Lesley buy this buy that.  I did make the mistake of telling them my name and they have passed it round to the extent where I was swimming 500 meters out and they called me by name to buy bracelets! I thought I’d managed to avoid them by clever use of my bike only to have one of them offer me a better bike to hire. I going to try and run past them this evening, that’ll frighten them! I’ve spent a bit of time a the natural hot springs, very relaxing and riding around the countryside. Also quite relaxing in it’s own way once you get used to the traffic rules, i.e. there are no traffic rules! Tomorrow will see us travel to Ubud, a inland hill resort for hopefully lot’s of trekking.