Archive for the ‘My life & thoughts’ Category
Our four islands holiday (10): Lombok
October 14th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
After visiting two of the main islands of Indonesia – Java and Bali – we headed to our third and last island of this amazing archipelago: Lombok. Lombok is an island to the east of Bali and the west of Sumbawa with a population of 4M. Its nickname is “the island of a thousand mosques”. […]
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Our four islands holiday (9): more Bali
October 12th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
Next morning, we had a two-hour cookery class. First, we had “harvesting”, the collection of some ingredients from the establishment’s gardens. Then there was a lot of cutting and grinding, followed by cooking in a large heated bowl and a heated grill. Constantly we were adding all sorts of of herbs, spices, vegetables, salt and […]
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Our four islands holiday (8): Bali
October 10th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
After three nights in the city of Yogyakarta and a total of five nights on the island of Java, today we moved to our second Indonesian island and the third island of our holiday: Bali. Flying with the state airline Garuda on a Boeing B737-800, it was only a bit more than an hour to […]
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Our four islands holiday (7): Prambanan
October 8th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
According to our programme, it was a “free day of leisure”, but Tess and I decided that, following a relaxed morning at the hotel, we would go on an optional excursion in the afternoon and a cultural event in the evening. The cost was three and a half million in the local currency, the rupian […]
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Our four island holiday (6): Yogyakarta
October 7th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
After two nights in Jakarta, we were off to our next destination in Java. Our guide was very anxious about the possibility of traffic, so we were collected from our hotel at 7.15 am for a train that left Gambir station at 9.35 am. We left behind the metropolis of western Java for the paddy […]
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Our four islands holiday (5): Jakarta
October 5th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
We had a daylong tour of Jakarta with Daniel, leaving the hotel at 9 am. We started with a visit to the Istiqlal Mosque – the name ‘Istiqlal’ comes from the Arabic word for ‘independence’. This is the largest mosque in Southeast Asia and the ninth largest in the world and it can accommodate up […]
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Our four islands holiday (4): on to Indonesia
October 4th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
After two days and three nights in Singapore as a stop-over arrangement, it was time move to Indonesia for our main holiday. Our flight from Singapore to Jakarta on Java island was again with Singapore Airlines, this time on an Airbus A350-900 which only took 1 hour 30 mins. Later we learned that, three weeks […]
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Our four islands holiday (3): more Singapore
October 3rd, 2026 by Roger Darlington
Our second day in Singapore was very different because we were on our own. We decided to visit a location called Gardens by the Bay. Following information given us by Bridgit yesterday, we successfully travelled there by metro which involved taking two lines. We returned by a slightly different route so we were quite pleased […]
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Our four islands holiday (2): Singapore
October 2nd, 2026 by Roger Darlington
On our first day in Singapore, Tess and I took a walking tour of the city led by Bridgit O’Donovan, an Australian who is married to a Chinese Singaporean and has lived on the island for some 20 years. She recently left Meta – where she worked with my friend Simon Milner who recommended her […]
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Our four islands holiday (1): introduction
September 30th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
Tess and I are off on our fifth foreign trip in the two years that we’ve been an item. After two breaks in European cities and two holidays in African countries, we’re venturing forth to south-east Asia where we will visited four islands: Singapore and the three Indonesian islands of Java, Bali and Lombok. We […]
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