something....
Well this blog post is for a competition by http://www.cheapflights.co.uk/
The brief is pretty wide - write a post about a trip I've taken where I got to know another culture.
For me this was probably many years ago, when I did a "round the world" trip as a student. We went to many places, but the one that stands out is our trip to Indonesia.
At the time we were 3 girls in our early 20s travelling on a tight budget. We visited lots of fantastic places, but as we had very little money, we stayed in local hostels, and ate in local restaurants, and avoided most of the tourist areas. In those days there was much less tourism in Indonesia any way, and Bali was far less comercialised.
Our trip to ubud was incredible, staying in bamboo huts, with balck tea and fresh fruit for breakfast, amidst rain forests and the amazing ntural stone swimming pools.
We also took a trip up a volcanic mountain at sunrise - something I'll never forget - we did have donkeys to help us on the steeper parts, but starting in the early hours in the darkness, and climbing through down to watch the sun rise at the summit was quite somthing...
Our trip took us through rural areas, and in one village we passed a school. The children spotted us through the window, and having probably never seen blonde, blue eyed people before in real life (my fellow travellers, not me!), came running outside, chasing us, and calling "Mister, Mister...!!"
The food was pretty special too, and I've never tasted peanut and noodle dishes with quite as much flavour since. We did get ill on a couple ofoccasions though, probably just not used to the different types of food available. The fruit there was juicy, tasty, and HUGE - I remember the papaya and lychees being available at the roadside for next to no money.
All in all it was a fantasticexperience, and one I'd like to repeat someday, though I suspect things have changed a lot in the last 25 years....
