The plan: 11 days exploring Lombok and Bali, the two most popular islands in Indonesia, hitting the beaches and volcanoes.

 

After having moved to Perth in 2012, we discovered that almost everyone's vacations were in South East Asia, specifically Bali. It was actually quicker (and cheaper) to fly to Bali than to the east coast of Australia. So when airlines offered their post-Christmas sales, I began scouring the internet to see what I could find. We randomly picked August as a good time to go away, being outside of the crowded school holiday period and a nice escape from the Australian winter. My search pulled up the goods. A one-way fare from Perth to Lombok: A$39 (approximately US$30). $39 for an international flight from Australia? It was unheard of! I immediately booked it, and found a relatively cheap flight coming home the following week. It was only after paying for the non-refundable tickets that we decided we wanted to visit Bali on the same trip, but we presumed it would be easy to catch the boat between the two islands. Now it was just a seven month wait...

 

In the meantime Danny and I had picked up our running and signed up for our first marathon, to be held at the end of August. Our trip, only 3-4 weeks before race day, coincided with what should have been our biggest mileage weeks. As you will see in the blog, I continued training as best I could. Danny, not so much.