Darwin, Australia - G'day!

After what we read in our guide book about Darwin, we are first of all happy that we survived our stay. “Defiantly not a place for people with week nerves. In addition to cyclones and bombs, there is a lot of other factors that can lead to sudden death. The city has the highest density of lightning stokes in Australia, 11 different poisoned snakes, hiding crocodiles, deadly spiders, and the most scary of them all Box Jellyfish.” - Luckily we didn't stumbled over any of them, the lighting however, we saw every night.

This time we also managed to find a free place to stay, with Brooke and her snake in millner ten minutes outside the city.

Kakadu National Park was the main reason we decided to include Darwin in our journey. We had 1 day tour in this extreme big park, along with us there were about 10 other morning birds on the same tour, and of course our enthusiastic guide, Owen. He could really talk, and he usually never had any good finish line. Or maybe we were to tiered to follow him, we didn't exactly have the best night on that mattress we “slept” on.

Owen talking about all the plants who can kill us!

During the tour we visited an Aborigional Museum, had a cruise on Yellow Water and took a hike in the area around Nourlangie. Amazing landscape and a colorful animal life. Marthe saw a lot of cool birds and plenty of small kangaroo's called Wallaroos. (Ranveig did also got her eye on some of the birds!)

While in Kakadu we felt like being in Africa, the city reminded us more about the states. - All the gun shops, the food, crazy people on the bus and the many homeless. Except here the homeless were aborigional's.

Our last day in Darwin, we scouted around, and found the most popular attractions the city had to offer.

Lunch!

Our impression of aussies are very good, we have never met more helpful people. You don't even have to take out your map, before someone runs up and offer their help.

Cheers Mates!

Marthe&Ranveig

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Bali - Hippie-Paradise

Byebye citylife we said, looking forward to 5 days in our Island-paradise, Bali.

We arrived the island late, but even though it was all dark we made up a pretty good first impression that didnt fail;

1. Balinese people are very smiling and pleasant

2. Everybody has a dog

3. Everybody has a temple

4. They all drive the scooter

5. They drive like crazy

We had booked a room at Nicks Homestay in Ubud, in the middle of the island. It wasn't easy to sleep the first nigth – it was a lot of noises – summing, clucking, birds, frogs and insects. This was what we woke up to:Bali, nothing like the big cities, nothing like our previous destination. 5 nights on this beautiful island, was something we really was looking forward to.

It was a beautiful place to live!

One of the many birds!

Breakfast on the porch.

Ubud is a small place, known for its colorful and exciting marked. We had a lot of fun bargaining and looking at all the things they sold there. We probably didn't do as good as we thought, but we were happy. Ubud made us in to real backpackers with batik tops and big Aladdin pants. The place was a real hippie-paradise.

Fantastic and colorful kites in the marked!

"Shopping-Marthe"

Our new friend! (Can't remember the name though)

After shopping our backpacks full, we decided to try one of the many spas in Ubud. There we got a full body massage lasting more than an hour for the price of a bread and a milk back home in Norway. Amazing! We wish we could stay there forever!

Ready for some massage!

The night came and we decided to be cultural, and bought tickets for kecak fire and trance dance. We felt it was a little strange, but at the same time its interesting to watch other traditional and religious rituals.

(Movie from the dance will also be uploaded when we have bette internet)

After two nights in Ubud we were eager to get to the coast, we wanted beach, sun and sea! That we chose Sanur was kind of random. To get there we had to find someone who could drive us – not a problem at all on Bali.

Rice Terrace

On the way we stopped at a fantastic rice terrace – what a view! We also payed a visit to a local coffee-plantation. Bali is known for a very special kind of coffee – the Lewak coffee – which have been deco fed in the stomack of a little cat-animal – the Lewak. We got to taste this and a lot of other kinds of coffee. We liked the ginsengcoffe the best!

More coffee, please!

Our days in Sanur was relaxing and comfortable, but not as sunny as we had planned. We woke up to the sound of rain every morning – and lots of it. Who know it would be rain season at this time a year – typical. The temperature was still good though. We spent our time at the local shopping center, and with a good book either on our little coffee-shop or down at the beach. It was a lot to see on the beach – people fishing, kites in the sky, chineese people digging for who know what, dogs playing and the balinese people just living their everyday life.

Bali surely amazing. Even though a lot of tourist has discovered its beauty it has still kept its natural charm. We met happy faces everywhere, saw fantastic landscape, and were truly fascinated by the balinese and hindu traditions, and rituals.

So long Bali, we will be back!

Ranveig&Marthe

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