Serengeti will never die

This was almost all taken on one drive up to Seronera where I was headed with my boyfriend to visit our HQ! A 2 day drive from Goma, eastern DRCongo...

Impalas grazing in Serengeti National Park, Tanzania (July 2009)

Suddenly, spotted by a spotted hyena! (see him behind long grasses at back?)

He is getting closer...


Luckily, just crossing the road...


Ostrich couple courting


Cheetas chillin'

A punk!?



Giraffe couple at sunset


Eles playing with ears


Ele poo!


Wildebeest migration


Why do hippos yawn all the time?


Rainbow greeting


Sunset colour


Sunset

Singapore nostalgia...

(site under construction)

Laying Buddah in temple in



Buddah



Fruits



Temple priest


Indian Hindu temple

Chinatown shophouses


UWC main entrance building


Girl's boaring house

Bali's biggest temple - Besaki

On the Balinese calendar's New Year's day, my friend Django and I rode to Besaki to see the huge gathering with a special ceremony that occurs every 10 years or so...
Sweating in the searing heat and humidity, we climbed up endless stairs to the last temple on top of the hill.



You have to be respectful and wear a sarong to cover your legs and a sash around your waist. Except here my colour coordination is so good that Django thought I looked like a bonbon!


We followed the crowd as they walked to the temple.



Met with a group of young men starting early on the Arak (traditional palm wine alcohol) - see blog post 'Bike trip across rice-fields in central Bali' for more on how this is made.




The Barong dance was performed by differnet groups all along the road back to Ubud.

Motorcycles and snorkelling down Bali’s north east coast – Amed.

The coastal road is one of the most lush and beautiful in Bali...



Then we arrived to this: Amed



My friend Django came to spend his well deserved RnR from Bangladesh! We rented a motorcycle and cruised down to Amed for a bit of beach-bumming and snorkelling. There are a few old Japanese shipwrecks to snorkel around which kept us busy for an afternoon. Amed is a sleepy fisherman’s village with a series of small bays with limited sand beach space but a very chilled out place to take in the beach life...








At 'Good Karma' lodge, the hamacs on every porch says it all. The owner has 2 Japanese wives!


Django - the sea God...

Concerts and hippes

Have you ever heard Michael Franti's music? He is the lead singer for his band Spearheads?

That was my first time ever hearing him and his very earth-conscious, rebel against the capitalism system, and promoting peace and love and understanding all over the world! Set in the beautiful Bamboo Foundation grounds, it attracted about 1400 people and the event was to raise funds for a school here in Ubud. Was an enormous success.

Here he is:


And his slash-looking guitarist!



See this link for an example of a song he sang and the message that goes with it!
http://www.metrolyrics.com/hello-bonjour-lyrics-michael-franti.html

So lots of hippy, happy, jumping people, all loving life and feeling connected through Michael's feel-good vibe, charisma and sounds!

All 3 of us had been in the retreat together and we may have been the ones jumping the highest!




And of course a bit of fire poi to top up the evening...

Bike trip across rice-fields in central Bali

After a week of silence, I couldn't imagine being alone not speaking to anyone right after it so with one of my new-found friend Katarina the Kiwi world traveller, we decided to hang out for the next couple of days and we just talked non stop! It was hilarious! We went on a bike ride from central Bali coming all the way back - but all downhill, I assure you, this was no workout!

This below is a sophisticated traditional system to extract the purest form of alcohol from the cononut palm to make the best arak! Basically the palm boils in the pot, the fumes come up through the bamboo and collects in the recipient leaving only the most concentrated liquid in there to be drank straight up.







Stopping by traditional Balinese villages, visiting their houses, seeing local produce being made (including palm wine - had a few shots to keep us going!), and visiting temples and ridding through rice field terraces. The guide knew everything about the Balinese culture which was so refreshing.




I love this scene: a man is very carefully and lovingly washing this calf in the river, scrubbing her up with a bunch of leaves...

Silent Vipassana meditation retreat - one week

It may surprise some of you but I wanted to learn how to meditate so I thought, what better way then just thowing myself in at the deep end...

A one week Vipassana silent meditation retreat in Bali's oldest temple way up north is what I went for!





Some pictures all taken on last day (Nyepi), of the calmness found there.






















Day programme for 7 days:
2.45 am Bell for getting up to start meditating
6.00 am Bell for breakfast
11.00 am Bell for lunch (last meal of day)
14.00 pm Bell for 2 hour break as meditating throughout afternoon
22.00 pm Bell for bed time!

And that was not the hardest... the hardest was to stop thinking! And be aware and mindful all the time...
I thought I was spiritually void before I experienced this week, but I had some incredible happenings during that week which I did not expect at all... I think we should all try this at least once in our lives!
















This last one was on the last evening, when the teacher was speaking to the Indonesian-speaking group and a lighting storm lit the sky behind him. I caught a part of the lit sky on this last picture.