For good luck, yes.

I arrived in Bali yesterday, and caught a taxi straight to ubud - which turned out to be an hour's drive, and more expensive than anticipated. Petrol has gotten more expensive since my guidebook was written. I had nowhere booked, and the driver wanted to show me somewhere, so I let him take to Greenfields bungalows. Consequently (commission included) I am paying around $25 a night, whereas I had anticipated around $8 per night. But the place is beautiful. They serve coffee continuously (so I've had about 7 cups today already) - best coffee ever. Monkey Forest Road is this endless rabbit-warren of art/craft shops. Local artisans sell their wares here, but it's difficult to distinguish between the quality goods and the mass-produced tourist-fodder. There are plenty of tourists around, but you get the sense that the town is used to receiving a lot more. It's all cheap, and bargaining can cut the prices by 50% (I have had most success doing it in Bahasa Indonesia - the people here have found my Bahasa a real novelty). Monkey Forest Sanctuary is the main attraction, so I made the obligatory visit this morning. Bought a bag of rambutans and was ambushed as soon as I entered the gates. So I went back to buy more, and the lady told me to hide them in my bag. So I did, and was then left alone. Unfortunately I was too scared to take them out inside the sanctuary, and handed them back to the seller on the way out. There are some nasty big male macaques. I feel sorry for the German kids whose parents made them sit still - screaming and crying - while the monkeys crawled all over them. The Indonesian families watching thought it was very funny. After that, I went shopping in the textile market, bought some silk batik and ink drawings very cheap, and wandered around the galleries, shops and temples in the north. This afternoon I paid a kid with a motorcycle to take me out to Yeh Pulu - the 14th century Hindu carvings on a rock-face. I had to don a sarong before entering because I didn't have long pants on. The relief is not much to look at - in fact I walked right past it to begin with - but a very humble sort of comic-strip record of village life 700 years ago. From there we went to Pura Goa Gajah (Elephant Cave Temple), which was a little more scenic due to its various water features. It was a Buddhist temple that was partially dismantled and built over with a Hindu temple around the same time that Yeh Pulu was done. The pieces of the old temple are piled up neatly beside the new one. Now it's raining. I just ate sate pork from a warung (street-stall) for around 80 cents, and I am about to make my way back to the monkey sanctuary, where a dance performance is supposed to occur tonight. I'm posting a parcel home tomorrow. See you again soon.

Home again

Forgive the abrupt end to my last post from Adelaide - I had been tapped on the shoulder and told that the computer had been reserved by someone else for 12.30. Anyways, all I had left to say was that I had left the hostel after dark to take some photos of buildings and coincidentally came upon the elusive pie floater van. And so I had the experience. And it was well worth $5.50. Today was spent wandering around the city, the gardens, the markets, taking photos and reapplying my sunburn, before flying home to Sydney this evening. Now I must sleep.

Again I am utilising South Australia's public internet service, having just spent twenty minutes as one of those crazy people you see waiting outside libraries for them to open. Most people just want a padded seat in air-conditioning. The rest are here for free internet. Crescent Moon was interesting. Amazing, really, in retrospect. So much gold. The textiles became a tad monotonous though - it was hard for my untrained eye to appreciate the significance of the different patterns and weaving techniques - but I did spend hours there, carefully examining each piece, justifying the expense of getting here. Most were at least a few hundred years old. Afterwards I got lost again, trying to find the guy who sells upside-down meat pies in pea soup (ie, 'pie floaters'), to no avail. So I caught the tram out to Glenelg, where it was cold and windy, yet I still managed to acquire a nasty sunburn. Will complete later...

Three time-zones in three days

I am in Adelaide on a whim. Earlier this week I decided to come to see the Crescent Moon exhibition at the state gallery, showcasing Islamic art from south-east Asia. Hoping that I might gain some valuable perspective on the things I will come across in Indonesia, I began a 25-and-a-half hour bus journey from Sydney (after having only flown down from Brisbane the previous day). The trip wasn't complete agony. We passed through Canberra, and the north-western tip of Victoria, through the flattest and most baron landscape I have ever seen, stopping at decrepit old roadhouses (far different to those big flashy truck-stops you see along the east coast). This side of the border it's mostly vineyards and orchards. We arrived in Adelaide just in time for a thunder-storm, so I bought an umbrella in Chinatown and explored the central market (which is where I now plan to buy most of my food, because it's so huge and cheap, and the food all looks so good). I braved the rain to walk along the River Torrens, and back down Rundle Mall. The rain stopped as soon as I arrived back at the YHA. I am sharing a dorm with a South African electrician, a Parisian named Henry, and a talkative New Zealander who has been staying at the hostel for a week deciding whether or not to join the airforce. I left early this morning, bought breakfast at the central market, and then got lost in North Adelaide before finally asking a stranger to point me towards the art gallery. Alas, it was not open, and hence I find myself typing this from a public computer in the state library next door. It is past ten o'clock now though, and so I will be leaving to see this exhibition that I have travelled half-way across the country to see. I'm excited.