Warm Friday morning greetings from Toronto to you, ms_go - and thank you kindly for another round of wondrous writing and pictures. And, glad to see you enjoyed your brief stay in our fine home of Singapore; our sweet city-state of SIN can have her moments.

Also wish to congratulate you on travelling to so many unique places with your daughter. Last weekend was spent in Scotland for (near) yearly family reunion and the siblings all agreed our parents certainly raised a contingent of frequent world-wide travellers. Well done, go family. (And should you decide to venture off to the UK, I am in the process of putting up some all-too-brief reviews on my profile page; the latest UK trip was a perfect mix of work and holiday, with good family, friends and colleagues.)

Normally conclude with another modest promotion of "our" Singapore Airlines, but later today will be flying Air Canada from YYZ to good old SFO. (As always, would be honoured to offer future SQ suggestions.)

Keep up the brilliant work, ms_go. Warm weekend wishes to you and all from Toronto,

macintosh (robert)


... Singapore Girl, You're a Great Way to Fly ...

F1: <i>mr go - we had an earthquake at Narita once too!</i>

True fact: I have experienced only 3 earthquakes in my lifetime, and 2 of them were during travel layovers!

How funny, mr_go! The other other earthquake I felt was also in Japan - woke us up in the hotel in the middle of the night! So we say that every time we go to Japan, they have an earthquake!

Glad you enjoyed your Singapore Slings! We still talk about ours - DH found a recipe that tastes exactly like the ones there.

Also meant to tell you both that we have also "copied" you for our Berlin trip this summer. We are staying at the Adina Hackeschermarkt (sp?) hotel where you stayed!

ms_go,
I'm so loving your blog!

I've just started, but your experience at Villa Borobudur is amazing! I love your walk and the rural vistas -- stunning.

Looking forward to reading the rest!

great blog

Finished reading, and thank you! You have definitely helped me make the decision to go to Singapore/Java/Bali next year. I'll be following in your footsteps, for sure!

Loved your blog! Did you visit Candi Mendut, near Borobudur? It has the only Buddha statue I've ever seen where the Buddha is sitting as if on a chair. www.marlandc.com/Java-2012/Candi-Mendut

You visited a number of places that Cheryl and I didn't visit three years ago (like the kraton and the water palace) that I saw 20+ years ago. Isn't Java just an amazing destination? And of course, Bali is wonderful.

Bookmarking

Thanks, everyone! Glad you're enjoying the blog and photos.

Kathie, we actually did not get to Candi Mendut. We drove by it on our way in, which was shortly after the procession left there for Borobudur on Waisak. There was still a lot of activity going around around the temple. Then we drove by again on the way back to Yogyakarta and I realized we'd never made time to go there. Java is amazing. Our week there went very quickly. I wish we'd had time to go further east--but I know there is much to do there and we will just have to make that another trip sometime!

progol, you won't be sorry! We'll all be looking forward to your trip report next year.

AskOksena/Robert M, we enjoy traveling with our daughter and wish we could do it more often. She keeps us thinking "young." I'm not sure we would have picked a rafting trip without her input, but it ended up being something we all really enjoyed and will remember about this trip. And we enjoyed having her as our "guide" in Singapore! I could tell she was happy to be back there.

<i>True fact: I have experienced only 3 earthquakes in my lifetime, and 2 of them were during travel layovers!</i>
And, ironically, the other one was here in this hotbed of seismic activity, Northern Illinois. True fact!

Florida1, have a wonderful time in Berlin! I thought that hotel was in a great location, so hopefully you'll enjoy. The Pergamon Museum is one of my faves. I think part of it is closed now but you can still see some of it.

Just finished reading your amazing blog. From one Hawks fan to another, many thanks for bringing back wonderful memories of our own journeys now more than a year ago.

Thanks so much for this trip report, ms_go, and for your blog and awesome photos, too! I am at the very earliest stages of planning a trip for 2016, and Indonesia is definitely on my radar, particularly Java and Bali. Your words and pics are inspiring!

I usually aim to travel in May, but can slide a bit into June. I might be able to include Waisak Day in Bodobudur – it sounds like something you would recommend?

Can you tell me anything more about your rafting trip? It sounds like a lot of fun….

Congratulations to your daughter on her graduation, and to you and mr_go for helping her get there! I hope you’ve recovered from your cold and are finding benefits to returning to "normal".

BTW: I want one of those Balinese pancakes!

kja, In 2016 Waisak will be celebrated on May 21.

Hi, kja. ms_go is hard at work trying to meet a deadline, but I have the day off today (lucky me). So I'll answer in her stead.

Waisak is a pretty big deal at Borobudur, and there are quite a few visitors there. We missed the procession and the daytime crowds at the temple, due to our travel schedule...but we would imagine it was quite a scene. The evening event that we attended had thousands of people; I'm pretty sure you need to buy tickets, but our hotel took care of everything for us. In any event, it pays to plan ahead.

The rafting trip on the Elo River was a nice little adventure. Again, it was entirely arranged by the hotel staff, so no hassles. It offered just enough white water to keep it interesting for amateurs like us, with cool and peaceful stretches that afforded a glimpse into daily life of local residents along the river's edge. And at around two hours, it didn't wear anyone out and didn't chew up too much valuable vacation daylight.

Thank you so much for your kind words. Both ms_go and I are very proud of Allie, and we can't wait to see what surprises await in the next chapters of her life's story.

P.S. The pancakes were great, but nothing beats a hearty bowl of homemade soto!

@ marmot -- thanks!

@ mr_go -- thanks so much for your response -- I like what I'm hearing and find it very helpful! If I decide on Indonesia, I'm sure I'll be consulting this thread and your blog over and over. I hope ms_to meets her deadline with time to spare.

We've finally had time to go through photos from three people/four cameras and post some to go along with this report.

The short version--one album of some of our favorites from the whole trip:
http://onelittleworld.zenfolio.com/s...ndonesia-faves

The long version--separate albums for each day of the trip, which we are pairing with the individual reports on the blog:
http://onelittleworld.zenfolio.com/singapore-indonesia

As noted earlier, my primary lens broke at the beginning of the trip, so there is a much higher percentage of iPhone photos and a much lower percentage of DSLR photos than normal (for us).

We hope these are helpful to anyone considering a visit to these areas in the future.

Thanks for sharing your photos, ms_go. They help bring back fond memories of our own trip. Especially love the photo of Borobudur lit up at night.

Thanks, brought back memories of our trip as well.

PS I loved seeing where you stayed near Borobudur!

I can't thank you enough for posting your "long version" -- absolutely inspiring! And yes, they are VERY helpful to at least one person considering a visit to these areas -- I'm rapidly becoming convinced that you are introducing me to my next trip.

Did you have connectivity in these more rural places?

How did you happen to choose them, though it sounds like there's quite a tourism infrastructure so they can't be too far off the beaten path.

Obviously I'm not familiar with the region or Asian in general. But I did see that Singapore was humid and seemed to get a lot of rain year round, so I'm not even sure when the monsoons are.