Marty Mellway Photography

On the worn stone board walk by the Bali Sea a group of about 10 children fly their kites in the strong wind as their elders relax in the shade of their precarious bamboo shacks. My mind is confused by the sound of chickens, goats and the crashing waves of the sea mixed together. I guess growing up in Canada we tend not to associate farm animals with a tropical sea side. We get the usual look of confusion from the locals as we walk by, but it quickly turns into a smile when we say “hello, apa kabar” (“ hello, how are you”). “Baik baik” (“good, good”) they yell. “Hey, where you go?” asks the old man after we pass. It’s always the first question that pops into their head, not sure why. Maybe it’s the only English they know. “Jalan Jalan” (“taking a walk”) I yell over my shoulder. “Oh jalan jalaaannn” they laugh. The cool breeze blowing in from the sea is a nice change from the hot backstreets of Singaraja we took to get to the sea side. As we continue along the path we notice a large ...

After a few days in Jakarta it was time to move on. JP had found a job in Jakarta so his journey ended there, for now. We flew down to Bali, continuing our search for work. We have been in Bali now for maybe about a week. A couple days in Kuta (a boring beach town near the airport, popular for drinking and clubbing), 5 days in Ubud and today we arrived in the beach town of Lovina. On the second day in Ubud we did some cycling through the countryside and visited a few temples and sacred sites. On the third day we did a 10KM walk through some of the major archaeological sites around Ubud. We walked out of Ubud towards the village of Sala. Most of the way was down hill deep into ravines and then the strenuous climb up the other side. Arriving in Sala was a nice change, nice and flat! Rice Paddies as far as we could see. We passed through some of the important local temples and saw some of the different style of ancient Balinese architecture. Not far from Sala we went to the Ant...

In search of culture we left the beaches of Lovina and headed on foot into the mountains to the south . We didn’t have to go far to leave the touristy little town of Lovina behind. We quickly realized that this part of Bali didn’t see that many tourists on foot, maybe they would spot the occasional foreigner flying by on a motor bike. The small one lane road headed straight into the foot hills which wasn’t much of an incline. After about an hour we came to the top of a ridge and had a beautiful view of the mountains on the coast to the west. We met a woman there cutting grass with a small hand scythe and had a quick conversation in Indonesian about the heat and where we were headed. She seemed relatively unaware of the scorching heat even though she was wearing two shirts and a long skirt. She seemed a bit surprised that we were walking up the mountain for no reason except just for the sake of seeing what there was to see. I would likely feel the same way if I had grown up in a ...

Just a recap Of what I have been up to. I was in Beijing for a while checking out the sites before leaving china which was pretty cool. Met some really nice people there. After a few days, we flew from Beijing to Singapore and caught a ferry to the island of Batam in Indonesia. Flights directly to Jakarta were pretty expensive so we figured we should just fly to Singapore and take a ferry to Jakarta via the island of Batam. Batam was a nice island, though we only stayed for one day before jumping onto a ship bound for Jakarta. The ferry ride was overnight and lasted about 30 hours. We met a couple in their 70s who were on a biking trip all across Europe and Asia. They had biked most of the way from Scotland to Indonesia and were about to bike the length of Java to Bali. Amazing! In the end, we ended up saving a couple hundred dollars each. We arrived in Jakarta In the evening and took a Taxi to the main backpackers street, Jalan Jaksa. An interesting street if you’re in the right place...

After living in Dongguan in southern China for we decided that it was time to move on. JP Jeanette and I left dongguan together. With a common goal in mind we figured we might as well travel together for a time. After leaving dongguan we headed north on the train because we had a prospective job in Jinzhong, Shanxi Province. The train ride wasn’t too bad... right. We had a bed which was unfortunately on the top bunk giving us little room to move between the bed and the ceiling, approximately 2 feet of room to be precise. We saw a lot of the Chinese country side, but were getting a little giddy and overtired near the end. The train ride was about 45 hours long, but felt more like a week. From the beginning to the end every 20 minutes a man would emerge from the end of the train car slowing pushing a fruit cart moaning shuuuuiiii guo (sounds like Shuaaaaay gwo), which means fruit in Chinese, as he made his way through the Car. By the end of the second day we were so tri...