This is my fourth small group tour with G Adventures. While it isn’t my preferred way of travel, there are many advantages, and I have seen and experienced things that would have been difficult or impossible to organize on my own.
Cooking class with chef extraordinaire Ketut.Grinding the spice mixture. Not my finest moment fashion-wise.
But there is a down side. There are many personalities with which to contend, and sometimes things break down. This happened last night. A fight broke out on the dance floor of a cool little bar across the street from our beach bungalows. Two women. Canadian. Apparently, the days when we can be smug about our reputation as being “nice” are gone.
Before the kerfuffle.
As these two older women who should know better hurled insults at each other, the younger crowd of Australians, New Zealanders and Canadians tried to calm things down. The reggae-influenced band members played on, likely all too familiar with the ugly effects of too much alcohol. This sober and embarrassed Canadian woman called it an early night.
And the band played on.
Balinese people, on the other hand, seem to have cornered the market on sweetness. Take for example the doctor from the clinic down the road. Instead of me going to her, she made a house call! Turns out that one of the blisters sustained on my first walk on the beach more than a week ago is now infected which accounts for the swelling, pain and redness. So I’m grounded today and banned from the water for the next few. Sigh.
We were five minutes into the walk along the wooden platforms in the Monkey Forest when I felt the weight of a medium-sized monkey land on my shoulder. Don’t panic, I reminded myself. Sandi said not to panic if this happened. But I really didn’t expect it to happen, and my heart was beating like a jackhammer.
It may have been a female because she was showing intense interest in my brightly-coloured bracelets. Of course, it could also have been male. These are, after all, monkeys. I don’t even like monkeys particularly, ever since that mugging-for-oranges incident in Rishikesh.
Babies are so tiny.
Monkey Forest is in Ubud, centre of spiritual tourism on Bali. Way too busy for my liking, but I did manage to get some laundry done and we had an amazing meal in an authentic Bali home the first night, so no complaints.
We got a lot of use out of this pool.
The tour so far has exceeded all expectations, and we still have the beautiful island of Lombok ahead. Part of the group will be departing on Sunday and six new people will join us, so the energy will change. I will miss Chloe from London who is afraid of everything, Elizabeth from Mississippi who is always wandering off mysteriously on her own and returning with a satisfied smile on her face (she says it’s massages…), sweet Sam from Australia whose rafting guide fell in love with her and proposed marriage on the spot, Andy and Thomas from Germany who can usually be found in the pool with a beer.
Stopped for lunch at a centre for the physically challenged. They had a great band!
A prolonged tropical downpour started not long after our arrival in Candidasa. This cancelled our rooftop yoga session with Sandi, so we all piled into the pool. Nothing like being in water in a heavy downpour, especially since we’ve been battling temperatures in the high 30s and 100% humidity
And the monkey? it finally gave up on getting the bracelets off of my arm and leaped into a tree, where it belongs. Much too close for comfort.
It’s all fun and games til one of them lands on you.
I don’t generally take Canadian money with me when I travel. As a matter of fact, I rarely have much money in my wallet period. So the last-minute decision to stash $100 CAD (part of annual Costco rebate) in my backpack is one of those little blessings that the universe doles out from time to time.
Spent most of today under this tree, hiding from a very strong sun.
I researched money and ATMs and found they were plentiful in the tourist areas of Bali. And that information was spot-on. Stopped at the first in a line of them at the airport, however the machine simply ejected my bank card and told me to have a nice day I stood in line at the next machine but when the guy in front of me couldn’t get money, I decided on a whim to exchange my CAD cash so that I could pay for the taxi (which by the way the hotel forgot to arrange leaving me to the devices of the international taxi mafia).
Every home and business features these tiny offerings each morning.
Yesterday, Maria and I pulled ourselves away from the pool to hit the cash machine early afternoon before it ran out. Maria gets money. None for me, and not even the courtesy of best wishes or a smiley face.
The prettiest of the three pools on the property. I have tried everything to orient this photo properly. Nothing worked. Tilt your head😀
It appeared that contacting Tangerine with my travel dates was just another one of those wasted phone calls where I try to do my due diligence and they pretend to listen
So of course I have to buy more Skype credits. And remain on hold for much longer than the promised “2 or 3 minutes” only to hear that it’s the middle of the night there and the systems are undergoing maintenance and maybe I should try another bank or perhaps my card will work tomorrow once it has been “refreshed”.
Ditto for this picture of the sweet little reading nook next to the pool.
Gotta tell you, not feeling that refreshed at the moment with Tangerine. This isn’t my first time at this rodeo. They may soon find themselves fresh-squeezed .
I have arrived in Hong Kong. It’s just after 5:30 am, and I feel as though I’ve been dropped into the middle of a futuristic sci-fi film. There are a number of reasons for that, but before I go into them, let me back up and give an account of the flight so far.
Halifax airport…deserted. No one ahead of me at the check-in counter and only one at security. The TSA agent said it was partially the time of day, but also because of the Coronavirus scare playing out on the other side of the world.
The flight to Toronto was crowded but otherwise non-eventful with the exception of the flight attendant who provided comic relief during the pre-flight safety announcements. He wasn’t the best I’ve seen, but it’s always heartwarming when the airline staff try to make the flight a little more enjoyable.
Overheard from seat behind me “Toronto…a nice place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live here.”
I had been dreading the Toronto-Hong Kong leg. Fifteen and a half hours in a plane is hard, I suspect even in First Class, where I was not. I took my seat in 63A, but it wasn’t long before I realized that the plane would not even be one quarter full. The flight attendant confirmed this, stating there would probably be space for every passenger to have their own personal row of seats. I didn’t have to ask why…90% of the passengers and 100% of the crew were wearing face masks.
Long story cut short, I stretched out in the seat ahead, slept for close to 12 hours, watched a documentary on the Serengeti, had breakfast, and we landed in Hong Kong (with a thud).
I know it was early, but according to Wikipedia this is the ninth busiest airport in the world, and it is empty. Every single employee is wearing a mask. The lounge is so quiet you can hear the bread toasting.
There’s a brisk breeze blowing outside my ninth floor window. It’s warmed up somewhat since the -18C temps of early morning, yet the scene below still resembles a concrete slab of Canadian winter under cloudless blue sky.
Denpasar, Indonesia, on the other hand, had temps in the low 30s the last time I looked, with feel-like temperatures in the +42C range. I wonder how a body reacts to temperature swings of approximately 60 degrees…
It was a pleasure seeing my backpack again…a bit of a surprise really given that I was ready to sell it when last I unpacked in early September. Interesting how a few months of routine (more or less) can make me yearn for uncertainty. New cultures and languages, making new friends, avoiding the local taxi scams. Being robbed by taxi drivers is a universal experience, kinda like music and love and wondering how Donald Trump got elected.
Portable hand sanitizer at the ready!
I leave for Bali Tuesday evening. Wonder of wonders, I am mostly packed. This has never happened quite so early before, and I chalk it up to being sick with a cold. Given the state of travel in Asia due to a certain virus, the very last thing I want to do is show up at a health check point with a fever and chills. So I am isolating and self-medicating and putting good thoughts out into the universe in the hopes that the headache eases and my voice comes back. I don’t pray, but if you have some spare time…
I’m on hold for about 15 minutes or so before the Instant Pot representative comes on the line. The music isn’t half bad for being of the elevator genre – reminiscent of the Allman Brothers in their heyday – but it gets old after the third or fourth repeat. Whoever composed it obviously could not make the cut in the class of southern rock and was relegated to this…entertaining frustrated customers who are wondering what the hell happened to their double batch of vegetarian chili.
Sad, isn’t it? I used to spend hours on the phone with the internet and phone companies, trying to make sense out of quantum physics based billing practises. Now, I’m spending time trying to understand a combination pressure/slow/rice cooker. And this on a sunny day when I should be outside hiking before the icy grip of Canadian winter takes hold.
Speaking of winter, the quest for a place to hang my sun hat has begun. India leads at the moment (she always does), but Portugal, Spain and Africa are also in the running. No doubt I’ll end up somewhere that isn’t on the list…that seems to be my style.
It’s a beautiful day in Swansea (pronounced Swanzee otherwise no one will understand what you’re saying and was I the only person alive who didn’t know that?)
I’m staying in a great location; several Asian restaurants within a 10-minute walk and 2 minutes from Joe’s Ice Cream Parlour, long revered as the best in town! I’m also five minutes from the beach and about 15 minutes from Singleton Park. As I explored the many trails and marvelled at the expanse of green there this afternoon, it struck me that this may be the perfect place to revive my running career. But then I realized it would probably take a month to find running shoes. So walking it is, and with miles of beach and the natural beauty I see around me, I’m gonna be busy!
Five miles of pristine beach along Swansea Bay.Toward the city.I think that might be Three Cliffs Bay in the distance. Will have to ask Ruth, my friend who lives out that way.Entrance to the park.
Having said that, I’m feeling a wee bit lonesome today for Cheltenham and my studio apartment next to Lisa, her mom and her dog, a spaniel-poodle mix. (Would that make her a spoodle?) I felt like part of the family there, playing fetch with Poppy when I could get her to let go of the ball, shooting the breeze with Lisa, and gardening with Margaret, Lisa’s 86-year-old mother.
Margaret…not your typical 86-year-old. In fact, she was more like a handyman than an octogenarian, buying and lugging home huge bags of fertilizer and topsoil and spending most of her days in Lisa’s garden, clad in spandex capris and hot pink Crocs. She dug up beds, pulled weeds, moved existing plants and planted new ones, all the while throwing the ball for Poppy to fetch. The two of us pruned the bejesus out of a tree in the back garden one blazing hot afternoon. Then she announced she had to quit early (6 pm) because she had dinner plans…this as I stumbled off to shower and crawl into bed.
Margaret on our outing to Tewkesbury one rainy afternoon.
So yeah, missing my Cotswold family a little bit but also intrigued by what the next few weeks will bring.
It seemed fairly straightforward. Take the bus to Moreton-in-Marsh, have lunch, then walk to Stow-on-the-Wold to catch the return bus to Cheltenham. Ten kilometres, and I had a GPS map. I popped in to the information centre just to make sure, then set off.
I’ll admit, it was a bit warmer than I expected. And it wasn’t long before I realized that there would be precious little shade. Unlike Canada, “the woods” in England consist of about a dozen trees dividing open fields that stretch out endlessly. In Canada, we call that a hedge…
The beginning of the trail was encouraging.
It got a bit more dense later on.
Plenty of gates.
Some signage here and there.
Things went fairly well until I reached the outskirts of the small village of Longborough where I took the first of many wrong turns. It turns out my GPS map worked well as long as I stayed on the trail. If I strayed, it was maddeningly silent, the blue dot blinking stubbornly but otherwise giving me no indication of my actual location.
This is where I had the (literal) brush with stinging nettle. And some nasty deer flies. Fifteen minutes later, my legs were in full blown pins-and-needles mode, and I was starting to think this may have been a mistake.
A lot of fields.
Pretty mini Bridges.
Not stinging nettle, but evil nonetheless.
I soldiered on, and soon heard that ominous sound…cows… Thankfully, there was a fence and some distance between us, so I hurried along and finally came out onto a paved road in lovely Longborough. I thought I was back on track until I emerged in front of a major construction project which obliterated the route in the GPS map.
After a bit of wandering, I found a small convenience store/cafe and some wonderful locals who provided solid directions. After a brief rest and much-needed liquid refreshment, I was off again. Only to return, about 45 minutes later, totally defeated by the multitude of paths and total lack of signage. I was done. Where was the taxi?
Civilization!
Love a town with a sense of humour.
Not my day. The only taxi driver in the village had turned off his phone. Just as it looked as though I’d have to brave the trail again, the woman behind the counter said she could drop me off. And two women who stopped for tea also offered… In the end, I was transported the rest of the way by the lone woman whose accent was so strong I just smiled and nodded and hoped she had no idea that I couldn’t understand a single word she was saying.
Fifteen kilometres and three hours later, I reached Stow-on-the-Wold. My legs were still numb and tingling and remained that way until the next day when the Benadryl finally worked its magic.
Both Moreton-in-Marsh and Stow-on-the-Wold are as idyllic as their names would suggest.
I’m feeling fine again, and looking forward to my next walk….Bourton-on-the-Water to The Slaughters. Seems straightforward…
Andy dropped me off at the top of the High Street at about 8:30 am. A friend of my host Lisa’s, Andy is a stone mason and is rebuilding a stone wall for the National Trust in the traditional way…no mortar or concrete. He’ll be working in the area all month and has graciously offered to drop me off anywhere between Cheltenham and Chipping Camden. Today I’ve chosen Broadway.
It was quiet as I made my way toward the start of the walk up to Broadway Tower. This was my first cross-country attempt in the Cotswolds, and I was feeling a little apprehensive given that Google isn’t much help off-road (or otherwise, but that’s another story). It wasn’t long before I hit my first obstacle….a large field with no way markers and filled with sheep. Normally, farm animals don’t bother me. But ever since those cow attacks in India and the head-butting goat incident in Kathmandu, I find myself a little less enthusiastic about herds.
Some ignored me.
Others did not.
Luckily, Ann and Paul happened along and agreed to let me tag along. This couple was quite obviously out for a workout, and they all but sprinted up what turned out to be a fairly steep hill. I managed to keep up, but just barely, and I was soaking wet and panting by the time we reached the top. It was well worth the effort though, with the rolling hills stretched out for miles and tiny villages nestled in the hollows. We said our goodbyes, and they headed back down, while I did a bit of exploring around the tower. They were right about the sheep by the way…the scariest thing about them is the amount of poop they leave in their wake.
Broadway Tower, built as a folly back in the day.Great views at the top. This is the kind of wall that Andy is rebuilding.
Broadway…charming. Full of that golden Cotswold stone…every home as neat as a pin and looking like a postcard. It was also filled with walkers, people doing day walks as well as others who appear to be tackling longer distances along the Cotswold Way.
The majority of houses look like this.Or this…Of course there would be horses…
The bus ride back to Cheltenham was as entertaining as the walk! The bus drivers must all be retired stunt car drivers to manoeuvre the vehicles on those winding country roads where we met huge trucks, skittish horses and everything in between. And around every corner, another whimsical English village to be explored.
Careening along winding country roads with a Maggie Smith clone at the wheel. It isn’t what I envisioned when I booked a month in the Cotswolds…it’s far, far better!
I arrived in Cheltenham, England a few days ago and am settling in. My accommodation is perfect; a self-contained studio apartment with private entrance and a lovely garden, complete with a dog. Poppy is about four years old and is a spaniel/poodle mix. We got off to a great start with a ball-throwing session, and I’m happy to say her human family is just as friendly. Lisa, my host, has been generous, picking me up at the bus station, inviting me to dinner and providing tons of suggestions for things to do and see while I’m here.
The icing on the family cake is Lisa’s mother Margaret, driver of the aforementioned car. Funny, outspoken and gardener extraordinaire, she spends quite a bit of time here replacing broken clotheslines, planting and weeding and Poppy-sitting while Lisa is at work. When she offered to show me some of the smaller villages surrounding Cheltenham, I jumped at the chance.
Along the way, we spotted a man of about 60 looking a little lost so she stopped to ask if he needed help. He was going to Broadway, so Margaret promptly offered him a lift. He hopped into the back seat (next to her purse), and we had a lovely chat as she navigated the confusing maze of country roads. I think the guy hated to get out of the car. (And the purse was still there after he left.)
This morning I walked up to Cheltenham Racecourse and then on to Prestbury, purportedly the most haunted village in England. No ghosts around that I could see, and I walked through the graveyard!
I’m finding everyone a lot friendlier than expected. I had my hair cut a few days ago and by the time I left, it felt like my stylist James and I had known each other for years. On my walk today, I stopped to get a picture of a red phone booth in Prestbury. About ten minutes later, in another part of the village, a car pulled up and a man got out, asking if I was the one photographing the phone box. We had a grand old chat about phones and Pete Luckett and Halifax, and he offered me a lift back to Cheltenham where apparently there are a number of these iconic British symbols. (I didn’t take him up on it..he may have been a ghost…)
The Cotswolds Way walking path runs along this escarpment for 100 miles. I hope to walk a good portion of it.Love how all of the houses have names.It must be hard to hang pictures in this house…St. Mary’s Parish Church has its own ghost known as The Black Abbot.I looked for him but no luck.The quintessential village pub, right across the street from the church.
