Our celebrity status didn't go away even when we reached "mainland" - Java. Indonesia doesn't really have mainland per se - it's an enormous collection of grand, tiny, and every size in between, islands, but Java is home to the capital and people here are much more used to white faces. Nevertheless, wherever we went, we were the main attraction ( Read more... )

A night bus brought us to the to Kerinci National Park turnoff. The town was dead, only at the junction a roaring tiger cast in concrete was leaping over its own stand. We argued at length where to put our tents, and finally set up camp under the statue ( Read more... )

On our last day together Rick took us to Lake Maninjau for a hike full of leeches and lime green lizards. The man knows all the best spots! Even the forest trails that have small local bars to have a cold beer on the way. We stopped to see if we could find some rafflesia flowers (biggest in the world) in Bukittinggi, but the only two we found were ( Read more... )

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I expected more from Madagascar's Baobab Alley - probably the most recognizable place in the whole country. I've seen kkaplin's photographs of this site before and must confess: the pictures are much more impressive than the real thing ( Read more... )

African highlands, Lesotho and the adjacent South African Drakensberg Mountains (Dragon Mountains), fall like soft folds of green felt and stretch beyond the horizon. This fairytale landscape is very different from the Africa we've been seeing so far. Iridescent green sunbirds with bright red bibs drink from equally bright red flowers in strange- ( Read more... )

If anybody has communal living down, it's sociable weavers. Their "apartment buildings" hang on anything higher then a bush, looking like misshaped haystacks. Careful not to get pooped on, we stood under the high-rise and watched these busy little birds fly in and out bringing food to their young and constantly adding more wings to the structure ( Read more... )

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