Rowie's Scribbles

Definition of wanderlust: I never expected to have wanderlust but I do; every journey adds another facet to the world as I see it. I'm drawn to different cultures, historical treks back in time and reconnecting back to nature. That being said, I'm anal about planning my trips: I plan down to the minute and provide contingency plans.  2014 has been a fruitful year in terms of travel: I visited South Korea with friends, returned to Siem Reap with my man, and organized the department trip to Lombok, which is relatively unexplored territory among my peers. In addition, I've about 9 days of leave to use before the end of the year so I'm making plans for Hanoi and Bangkok!  I generated a map via Interactive Visited Countries and I can see that I've a lot of ground to cover - literally! So far, I learned that the following factors come into play when I plan a trip: 1) Traveling companions I'm not one to travel solo, partly due to security. I also l...

Day 2 was pretty hectic so it was a good thing I slept early; breakfast at the hotel starts at 6.30am. I'd packed the night before so I headed straight to breakfast after a quick shower. The spread was decent; you can order other items like porridge (pretty good!) and yogurt! The pastries were really good too! I'd some toast and yogurt, as I didn't want to eat too much before a 3 hr flight home!  The hotel staff informed us that Sunday traffic can be busy as many people like to have weddings on Sundays, so they encouraged us to check out early. In hindsight, I think they also wanted to clear the rooms for other guests. Oh well. We managed to make time for a souvenir shop (our transfer agent got his friend to open the shop early for us) so I got some T-shirts and keychains! Our agent clarified that weddings aren't held early in the morning so we reached the airport about 2.5 hrs earlier than departure time. We walked around but the airport is small so t...

After a good start , it was time for the busy second day! We signed up for the waterfall tour with Charles and we left the hotel at 8am. We headed to Bawon Pusuk (Monkey Forest) to feed the monkeys. They were pretty cute and clever at catching peanuts tossed at them!  Monkey salon Enjoying life to the max yo Then it was long ride to a traditional market; I got 1 kg of the local mandarin oranges for 10000 IDR, it was quite sweet and the skin was easy to peel. We passed by rice paddy fields; green green green everywhere! The farmers use plastic strips to fend off birds. We passed by beach villas; Charles explained that many foreigners buy land because it's cheap and build holiday mansions. We saw some villas under construction underway; hmm how nice to have a private beach getaway!  That's a rice bowl there Plastic strips fluttering in the wind Glimpses of the sea Then it was a REALLY long ride to Mt Rinjani National Park and to the traditional vill...