Dan and I just returned from a 2 week vacation in Indonesia.  I know that no one actually wants to hear about a happy couple honeymooning at the beach, so I’ll spare you the details.

Though, I can’t help but share a few lessons learned —

1. Outdoor bathrooms seem like a good idea, until it is pouring rain and you are suffering from food poisoning because you were an idiot and had local ice in your your beach-side sunset cocktail.

2. When a guidebook says a city is “hard to love,” believe it.  Travel writers are adventurous, capable folks, so when they say Jakarta is a tough place to really like, you probably won’t be able to prove them wrong with 24 magical hours.  Especially when you decide to stay at a hotel where bomb-sniffing dogs check your handbag before you enter the lobby and your taxi-driver gets a pat-down.

3. Don’t sit next to small children when taking a boat across open water. It is not going to end well for them, and thus, you.

All said, it was a great trip and the parts of Indonesia we saw were absolutely beautiful.  We flew into Bali where we spent a few days in Ubud amidst rice paddies, then went north to the mountains where we stayed in Munduk and, after the power went out, watched the most amazing thunderstorm from our hut’s balcony.   We took a boat to the neighboring island of Gili Trawangan where we had the beach to ourselves.  We spent a few nights on the southern coast of Lombok, where we saw amazing coastal scenery and because of a room snafu, had a private swimming pool.  It was an accident, but it was awesome.  There may have been canon balls and underwater handstands.  On our way home we stopped in Jakarta for a night, experienced the great wonder that is Jakarta’s traffic (though a 2 hour taxi ride only cost us $12), and hopped a red-eye back to Tokyo.

In all honestly, I would love to share photos but we took more than I can safely download to my computer without it crashing (1000+).  Though, OK, I did manage to snap a few with my point-and-shoot.  Maybe just one beach photo…

I ain’t foolin — we really had the beach to ourselves, which I guess isn’t such a big deal when you’re on an island and there is so much of it to go around.  This beach in particular is slated for development, so it won’t look like this in another 10 years.

Vacationland, I miss you already.