louiseinlimbo

Bali is not somewhere I’ve ever felt a need to visit, but it seemed a suitable place to spend a few spare weeks between more important trips.  Ubud - described somewhere as a more 'spiritual' place than the coastal resorts - sounded like somewhere I could rest, and gather my thoughts, without spending too much money. & so it proved to be, in some respects at least.  £4.50 (US$5.75) a night for a comfy bed in a hostel dorm, including breakfast and unlimited water/tea/coffee.  But the karaoke bar next door didn’t help me to rest, and the conversations with other travellers – whilst welcome (and one of the great benefits of staying in hostels) – did not leave me as much time as I expected to gather my thoughts! Nor did the two books in the hostel collection which I read from cover to cover.  But it was a good break. I’m not too sure what I think of Bali.  On the surface it is over-commercialised and far too full of motorbikes.  You can’t walk more than a few steps along the st

  Measuring up to 3 metres and weighing up to 70 kg, the komodo dragon is a super-predator: any creature they can overcome and kill falls within their dietary range, from invertebrates and birds, fellow komodos (when the young hatch they climb straight up a tree, and do not descend until they are strong and fast enough to escape their cannibalistic brethren), the introduced Timor deer, wild boar, water buffalo and goats, and even humans.  The dragons can smell blood and the scent of death from nearly 6 miles away.  They kill by biting their prey, which dies within a few days from the bacteria carried in the Komodo’s saliva, which can cause paralysis, spasms and shock through haemorrhaging.  Animals up to the size of goats are swallowed whole, this process being aided by the komodos' loosely articulated jaws, flexible skull and expandable stomach.  The last human death was in 2009, but a Singaporean tourist who wandered off without a guide was bitten in 2017 (only by a small komodo

After the excitement of PNG, it was a relief to find East Timor to be such a sleepy, laid-back place.  Yes, Dili has a government palace and a few large foreign embassies along the waterfront, but it is definitely a town rather than a city in all respects other than its status as the country's capital.  So it was a nice place to hang out for a few days. Of course I had to make the long walk east of Dili and up the 570 steps to the Cristo del Rei statue, with its lovely views over the nearby hills and beaches. & I had to visit the Museum of the Resistance and the Chegg! exhibition, in one of the prisons from the Indonesian occupation.  The way the Timorese people were treated by the Indonesians was really awful, but almost more shocking was the way this disaster got so few headlines whilst it unfolded. I also went out for a couple of nice meals (surprisingly easy as this small place has several Italian restaurants along the waterfront), as I met up with two different friends who

After the colour and spectacle of the Mount Hagen festival, we had a couple more days of our holiday left, but in the completely different environment of one of the country’s many islands – New Britain.  We had a couple of days in which to snorkel, to watch dolphins, to visit a volcano observatory and Japanese underground tunnels from World War II, and to watch a performance of the Baining firedance.  It wasn’t exactly downtime (not enough time to use the hotel swimming pool ☹ ) but if a change really is as good as a rest then yes, I suppose it was restful!  & we did have a couple of free hours on the final morning, when I suppose I could have used the pool and flown out with wet swimwear, but I decided instead to visit the Kokopo War Museum. When we arrived we drove across the area which was devastated by the 1994 eruption of the Tavurvur Volcano and then covered with many metres of ash in the 2014 eruption, until we reached the observation point at some hot springs, and after lun

At all of the villages we visited we were made very welcome, many villagers coming out in their ceremonial costumes, others enjoying watching the proceedings.  Yes, I assume the dressing up was part of the ‘deal’ agreed in advance with the village chief – but the reaction of the villagers to our visits was clearly genuinely positive.   As indeed was the case all over the country.  So few foreigners visit PNG that it is an exciting event for them to see us – whether in the remote villages or in the towns.  & I love the fact that this makes it so easy to give pleasure, whether just by acknowledging the attention from adults with a simple nod or smile, or by waving at the children. It's one of the aspects of this country that shows how remote it is from the rest of the world.  Another is the language situation, with the 820-odd different languages spoken in this nation of 11 million people representing one-quarter of the world’s languages.  Thankfully the language of education is

I've been putting off writing this post ... because my trip to Papua New Guinea was so utterly amazing that I really don't know how to describe it, or what to say about it. It was the Mount Hagen festival that attracted me to the country, and I shall write about that separately, but I was blown away by the encounters with various tribal groups in different parts of the country. We started in the north-west part of the country, in the Sepik region (an internal flight, longish drive and then a few hours along a river in dugout canoes), where we stayed for a couple of nights in basic accommodation in a small village of the Sepik people.  They are also known as the 'crocodile men', as they believe that in ancient times crocodiles rose up from the Sepik River and evolved into human form on land.  Their reptilian lineage is commemorated through a scarification process marking the transition to manhood, when cuts are made into the skin of the chest, upper arms, back and buttoc