where to adventure travel in indonesia

Exotic black sand beaches stretching far in both directions. Some of the best surf in the world, reaching back to your fingers as you face the horizon of the sea. Bali is called that cliché phrase "a tropical paradise" - and you can see why, with all the glory of a Bali Beach before. In fact, it is tempting to call closes and the same Park these sandy shores for your entire vacation in a Bali beach resort, watching the waves peak and crash out at sea, while the lush jungle creaks behind you.

There is still much to tempt even the most dedicated bum Beach away from the surf here on the island of the gods. And for the bum from Beach who likes a touch of luxury, Bali is sure not to disappoint. Here is a list of the experiences of luxury of five major and adventures in Bali - accommodation for expeditions, from trips to journeys of the soul, the body seems everything in this sanctuary of an island.

5 Private Villas: enjoy your final fantasy vacation. More than a mere "home away from home", a private villa is better than your normal home. Located in its own stretch of beach of Bali or hidden in the green hills of the interior, these villas often come with a full staff and feature luxurious design. You can find these villas through individual proprietors, although many Bali beach resorts also operate private luxury properties villas.

4 Cultural and shopping: one of the things most exciting to visit Bali is the opportunity to experience the fascinating and unique culture of the island. As one of the remaining pockets of Hinduism in predominantly Muslim Indonesia, Bali is full to bursting with exquisite Hindu temples, such as the famous Tanah Lot, located on a cliff overlooking a beach of Bali and the horizon. Central Bali to Ubud deeper journey to discover the delight of a buyer of handmade crafts and work. Many of the beach villas and Bali resorts offer cultural tours and shops around the island with private drivers and guides.

3 Chartered expedition yacht and helicopter: nothing says luxury private transportation that makes it so special as the destination of the trip. See Bali from a new perspective to the rental of a boat or helicopter. Explore hidden coves and take a picnic to stretches of deserted beach of Bali from his yacht, either glimpse patterns of scale of fish in rice fields on the side of a helicopter. Discover a new side of Bali that few ever see.

2 Spa: Bali remains one of the main destinations of Asia for spa retreats, and many of the best will be in or near the beach of Bali. Spas are often next to the idyllic coast or located in the corners of the jungle, voluptuous. If you experience a famous Bali massage, a soothing tight body of local ingredients, or any number of healing and relaxing treatments, you are sure to leave feeling rejuvenated and restored.

1 Sunset: There is no experience in this world as a sunset Balinese. If you are travelling as a couple, family, group of friends or alone, this is the luxury of an experience of Bali Beach that cannot be missed. Several resorts of Bali Beach offer main viewing points, arrive late.

Maddox g. Raphoya is a travel writer based in Thailand and write about luxury, hotels and travel around the world.

Relaxation and entertainment assume different forms for different people. While some go to movies or parties, others go for plays and music shows. However, there are some for whom relaxation holds a completely different meaning. Such people prefer to be in solitude or spend some quality time travelling with their family or friends. Travelling can be great experience as it can provide you with relaxation, entertainment and some valuable life experiences simultaneously. Travelling helps you mature as a person. It makes responsible men out of boys and helps you learn about the world. No wonder travelers always have a trove of great travel stories to tell.

Travelling can be a great fun. Visiting different well-known destinations and unknown places can be an enriching and educating experience. Many people have grown up reading and listening to exciting and adventurous travel stories. A lot has been written about destinations like the Rohtas Fort, Peer Sohawa, Murree and Lahore City in Pakistan; as well as other touring spots in Jamaica and Indonesia. However, there is a vast difference between reading about a place in a travel guide and actually having a first-hand experience of the place. These destinations offer a unique experience on their own. Anybody visiting these places has their own travel story to narrate. Such tales make for good nostalgic readings. It doesn't just reflect on the historical background of these places, but also gives me an insight into the unrecorded history of the place, the people and the era. Many authors have made careers out of travel writings and have earned a massive fan following over the years.

Then, there are the new and interesting people you meet when you visit a tourist destination. These locals always have many different travel stories to tell. Most people, who are regular travelers and who visit famous places, end up making friends all over the world. In fact, after their first few visits to a place, there is no need to worry about hotel bookings as they know the best places and hangouts in town. These new-found friends can often give sound travel advice to the tourist and make his stay a bit more comfortable and hassle-free. Also, knowing new people could be a great experience as you can learn about new things and details about the place. Some tourists make an effort to keep in touch with their friends and share their travel experiences.

'The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page,' said St. Augustine. How very true! The experience that a person gets from travelling to different places is unmatched by anything else in life. Such trip experiences can teach you so much about life, about places, about people and, more importantly, about yourself. If you are someone who loves travelling alone, then you are sure to learn a lot from these travels. Travelling teaches you a thing or two about the difference between loneliness and being alone. To know more, you can go online and look for travel stories.

Ted Ace is the author of this article on Travel stories.
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In the 16 years that I have known my friend Mario I have heard many different tales of his world travels and he is one of those people who have lived, worked and hitchhiked through different exotic countries. Mario is a Toronto high school teacher and teaches French and world issues. He spent time living and working in places like Thailand, Indonesia, Mexico and Quebec and came face-to-face with often vastly different cultures.

Mario is also an immigrant in two different countries, Australia where he moved as a small child in the 50s, and Canada, where he arrived as a teenager. Here is his story, the story of an immigrant, traveler and global adventurer.

1. Please tell us a bit about your background. Where were you born and where did you grow up?

I was born in San Vita al Tagliamento in northeastern Italy in the province of Friuli. But my parents are of Calabrese origin from Southern Italy. After his military service in the north of Italy my father decided to stay there due to his fondness for Friuli culture. In 1953 my father moved our family to Australia where he worked with a French contracting firm and we settled in Brisbane, Queensland when I was 2.5 years old. It was there that I had my first memories of the immigrant reality which was a very simple house made of wood. The roof leaked into our house and we had plants growing through the floor in the kitchen. The conditions were very basic, but this would set the stage for 11 years of a very challenging cultural adjustment period, following which my father moved us to Canada in 1964.

At that time, Italians faced a lot of discrimination, even harassment or sometimes violence in different forms, physical and psychological. My family was actually the target of a number of different forms of attack because we were immigrants. It made for a rather paranoid existence, constantly having to looking over your shoulder.

Remember, this was the 50s and Australia was still governed within the framework of the "White Australia Policy", a form of institutionalized apartheid. I witnessed various acts of brutality towards Australian aborigines with whom I was often mistaken, given the darkness of my skin. The proximity to the sea, however, made me appreciate the beauty of Australia in its purest form. During this time I developed a strong sense of self-reliance and I learned the importance of defending myself.

In the mid 70s I returned to Australia and I noticed that the work of many of those earlier immigrants had born fruit in the form of comfortable lifestyles and accomplished middle-class experiences. Italians had finally become mainstream and accepted. This also corresponded with Australia's new multi-cultural policy. Australia started to open up to different nationalities, which made for a more tolerant society.

2. You are a gifted multi-lingual individual. How many languages do you speak and what are they?

English and Italian are my first two languages. I also speak French, Spanish and Portuguese at a pretty high level. In addition, I also get by in Indonesian and I speak basic German and some phrases in Russian. The sound of different foreign languages fascinates me and I also appreciate that speaking the language is the key to these foreign cultures. Apart from the initial period during high school when I was exposed to English, French and German for the first time, the rest of my languages were acquired through living in the culture.

3. What was it like when you first came to Canada?

I remember it being very very cold since we arrived in Canada on February 16, 1964. My first observation was a very abrupt introduction to the Canadian climate. For a good several years I found it very difficult to adapt to the climate. On the other hand, as far as culture went, I could finally tap into my Italian-ness. It was actually in Toronto that the whole notion of being an Italian took on a new meaning for me because I felt accepted. I felt embraced here and felt that I could express my Italian heritage which led to me perfecting my Italian, considering I had suppressed speaking Italian in Australia. Once we came to Toronto I felt a desire to further go into the language.

High school in Canada was an appreciation of many other languages. We were offered courses in French, German, Latin and Spanish at the high school level. The school I went to reflected the transitional nature of Toronto at that time, which had been very WASP (white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant) until the 1960s and from then on started to change into a more cosmopolitan environment. There were people of different backgrounds which made you comfortable expressing yourself. By the time I went to university I was fairly at ease with my own intercultural identity.

My appreciation for Portuguese started on a construction job in Tecumseh, Ontario, where 2 gangs of construction workers, one Italian, one Portuguese, were confined to a very small house, provided by the construction company and were forced to live and interact with one another. I started to appreciate the similarities and differences with Portuguese culture, which I found absolutely fascinating. This was my initiation into the Portuguese language.

4. What were your earliest travel experiences?

Apart from the immigrant boat travels, my first travel memories were when I hitchhiked to Niagara Falls and Barrie, a medium-size town 90 minutes north of Toronto, when I was 15 years old. This gave me a sense of independence and the ability to design my own path on any trip. I felt in control and decided where I wanted to go. We did not realize that we needed a passport to cross into the United States, so we learned the lesson that you need your documents in order when traveling to foreign countries.

The next big trip was at the age of 17, crossing Canada with a fellow student in a VW beetle. We went to Vancouver for one month, picking strawberries, working on farms to survive. The second leg of that trip was to Mexico via California. This was the period of Height-Ashbury, the Summer of 68, and we truly experienced Flower Power in San Francisco. This left a lasting impression on me because of the freedom and the camaraderie among the youth. Anybody would open their house to you and you felt a bond with many young people.

The paradox of this period was that it was during the Vietnam War. So just as you had young people bonding with each other, believing that peace was the answer to the world's dilemmas, people were getting killed on the other side of the globe. The administration in Washington believed that war was the answer and these young people had in effect opted out of the system.

Mexico in itself was an eye-opener. It was my initiation into Latino culture and decrepit third world conditions of the masses. This was my politicization when I realized the plight of the majority of humanity and it made me even more curious to go back and get in contact with these people.

When I came back from Mexico it was very difficult to adjust to mundane middle-class values, just fitting into my place into my system. So I dropped out of 2nd year university and continued traveling without a set itinerary.

I went to Europe first, starting with London, worked in a hospital, and then spent 2 months traveling Europe on a Eurail pass. After Spain I visited Morocco where I met a guy called Giovanni Pozzi who turned me onto images and illusions of Afghanistan, a place he had been to before. This created a great desire in me to also discover that part of the world.

After Morocco I intended to meet up with Giovanni and travel with him from Brindisi, Italy, overland to Afghanistan. In September of 1971 I visited him in Milan after having gone back to discover my Italian heritage, and I then linked up with him in Brindisi from where we took a ferry to Greece and began our overland journey in the direction of Afghanistan.

We made it to the Turkish-Iranian border after a harrowing incident on a Turkish train which derailed. Unfortunately I had not learned the lesson of my teen years and had not checked out visa requirements for Canadians. Iran required a visa for Canadians, so I had to return to an Iranian consulate on the Black Sea where I obtained my Iranian travel visa. Somehow Giovanni and I got separated and this was the beginning of true independent traveling. I learned never to depend on other people's information, always double-check everything yourself.

3. Please tell us of your experiences and impressions during your first trip to Asia.

After traveling through Iran for about a week, which was during the repressive reign of the Shah, I hitchhiked with 2 Pakistani truck drivers from Tehran to Mashad, the site of the Blue Mosque, one of the most beautiful mosques in the Islamic world. From there we went to Herat, Kandahar and Kabul in Afghanistan, where I was privy to some of the most fantastic images of Afghan culture. I saw horsemen in bright green silk pants, in attire suited more to the Middle Ages than the 1970s. Afghanis appeared to be a very proud people, dignified and ferociously independent.

After a short stay in Kabul I went through the Khyber Pass into Peshawar in Pakistan. This too was an amazing view into the gun culture of this region. Every man had a gun 4, 5 feet long and it was truly an overwhelming sight to see this much weaponry on display. Unfortunately this was to continue since a war would erupt between Pakistan and India at this time, and after leaving Pakistan I ended up traveling through India during a time of war.

I was traveling on trains with a mobilized army, a people in frenetic motion not knowing what to do. The whole country was in a state of tension. Foreigners were asked to leave the country, so after a month in New Delhi I had to change my plans of visiting Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka) and take the next flight out of Calcutta in the direction of Bangkok. The flight ticket at that time cost US$80 one way in 1971. Calcutta was also the site of millions of refugees pouring in from what would eventually become Bangladesh. They literally overtook Calcutta. I was about to sleep outside when I was approached by a couple of Anglo-Bengalis who insisted that it was absolutely improper for a European to sleep on the ground that way. They then insisted that I go and stay with them for a couple of nights. Their only requested favour in return was to send them a Levi jacket when I'd get back to Australia.

4. From India you moved on to Thailand. Please tell us about your experience in South East Asia.

In Bangkok of 1971 I would stay at the Atlantic Hotel for $1 a night, Bangkok was still a relatively small capital at that time. I left Bangkok and headed south, hitchhiking where I was brutally initiated to Thai culture. I was at the back of a pickup truck and dangling my feet out of it, the pickup truck was passed by another vehicle whose occupants got out and threatened me, pointing to my feet. Luckily a young Canadian from Saskatoon, Murray Wright, was sitting in the front of my pickup and explained that it was a big mistake to show the soles of your feet. This is a major insult in Thai culture. I then realized that when traveling it is very important to understand non-verbal communication as well. This was a major lesson for me.

This meeting with Murray was fortuitous. He had had an accident building a Japanese sugar factory and asked me if I would take over his job as a carpenter. This led to one month working with Thais and understanding to some degree Thai culture. It was also my first experience of amoebic dysentery, a tropical disease, which nearly killed me. This is how I was initiated to eating conditions in the developing world.

The full interview with photos is published at Travel and Transitions - Interviews

Susanne Pacher is the publisher of a website called Travel and Transitions(http://www.travelandtransitions.com). Travel and Transitions deals with unconventional travel and is chock full of advice, tips, real life travel experiences, interviews with travellers and travel experts, insights and reflections, cross-cultural issues, contests and many other features. You will also find stories about life and the transitions that we face as we go through our own personal life-long journeys.

Submit your own travel stories in our first travel story contest(http://www.travelandtransitions.com/contests.htm) and have a chance to win an amazing adventure cruise on the Amazon River.

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