Two Nyepi Resolutions
Tomorrow is Nyepi. That’s the Hindu day of silence on Bali, when everyone has to pretend they’ve left the island so Bali’s not terribly intelligent...
Category: Indonesia
Toraja: Just Plain Mental
In January, we went back to Toraja, the highland area of Sulawesi that’s famous for its gory funerals, not to mention burying babies in trees....
Friday Photo: Balinese Kris
This is Empu Nyoman Punduh, a kris-maker in Kintamani, Bali, with his masterpiece. The Balinese kris is central to the culture. A young man gets...
How to Spend 48 Hours in Ubud
If you’re coming to Bali, a night or two in Ubud, the island’s arts, culture, food and spirituality capital, is pretty much a must. So...
#BoycottBali? Nuh-Uh
The impending execution of two of the “Bali Nine”, Australians shopped to Indonesian authorities by Australian police for trying to smuggle heroin into Australia, has...
The Friday Photo: Sunrise on Mount Batur
Mount Batur is an absolutely classic volcano climb that, to my shame, we’d not yet done in Bali. It’s an easy enough hike, once you...
So I Found a Cobra in My Bedroom
I’m normally fairly sanguine about snakes. Well, about as sanguine as a Briton can be. We don’t really have snakes in Britain, by which I...
On Hospitals in Indonesia
On Tuesday, Zac had surgery – to finally remove the metal plate installed at huge expense after our helicopter evac from Mongolia, where he’d broken...
The Friday Photo: Jellyfish Lake
Ever snorkelled with jellyfish? Deliberately, I mean? We did, in the jellyfish lake on Kakaban Island, in Indonesia’s Derawan islands, off Borneo. Kakaban is a...
The Friday Photo: The Leang-Leang Caves
Maybe 17,000 years ago, maybe 40,000 years ago, someone scrambled up to the wall of this cave and left his handprint. It’s a large hand...