Patrick Love Photography » Travel Photography

Mt. Rinjani dominates the northern part of Lombok Island.  Higher levels of shade and moisture create a micro climate that is perfect for growing rice.  Dutch settlers created an extensive irrigation network so that spring-fed streams crisscross everything creating an overwhelmingly, garden-like atmosphere.  Still extremely remote and rarely visited, it’s the perfect place to hike and search out some of the most beautiful waterfalls that I’ve ever seen.

We stayed at a place called Rinjani Mountain Garden.  It’s owned by a sweet and accommodating German couple named Roland and Toni.  If you visit, ask Roland to see pictures of their boat.  Apparently they had quite the adventurous life, sailing the 7 seas, before they settled in this idyllic spot.  They also have lots of pets… dogs, horses, cats and even a monkey that keep guests company.  Breakfast, lunch and dinner are all served in their restaurant, as there are no other places to eat near by.  The food was great.  I can’t wait to return.

(below) Tiu Kelep waterfall.  If it wasn’t for our guide, we would have never found it.  We walked several hours on unmarked pathways through terraced rice fields just to find the trail to get here.

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Selong Belanak, Lombok is one of those special places, where everything kind of comes together.  It readily feeds all of the senses.  I put it in my top-10 favorite places list!  I’m already planning my return, sometime in the first 15 days of June 2013.  I swear that if you start posting facebook updates from this place, your friends will start to hate you.

(above) Does anyone else think that this guys looks like Lil’ Wayne?

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Lombok… what do I say?  Lombok is not Bali.  Lombok it like Turkey, where Bali is like Italy.  If you’ve been to those four places, than you understand.  South Lombok has some pretty nice beaches- which is a large understatement.

(below) OK, the beaches aren’t always empty.

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Tegallalang (chant that word a few times to yourself, it feels good doesn’t it?) is a small village and some rice fields, about 20 minutes north of Ubud.  I don’t think that the rice terraces are at their best in early June.  I’ve seen pictures where they are just bursting with green.  Still, any photographer worth their salt would have to drive up, and try to get a good picture or two.

On my way back from trying to shoot a sunset at the rice terraces, I came across a city-wide celebration.  This kind of thing is always happening in Bali.  I was the only tourist there.

(above) I thought the modest little place here looked like a great place to spend a week with the family… You can rent it HERE.  OK, so that might be kind of an expensive week.

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Puerta Princesa is more a hub than a destination.  Located almost in the middle of the Palawan Peninsula.  To the north, lay some of the best scuba diving locations, resorts, islands and beaches that the Philippines has to offer.  To the south… well nobody knows for sure.  Almost nobody goes there.  It’s just untouched nature and perfect empty beaches.  Going south far enough will take you straight into Borneo.

Places that serve good food are close to my heart.  Puerto Princesa serves the best food I’ve had in the Philippines.  KaLui and La Terrase served up dishes and drinks that you simply can’t get anywhere else.

We stayed at the Palo Alto Bed and Breakfast.  They do the whole, shoes-not-allowed-shiny-hardwood-floors-everywhere thing.  The owners were very friendly.  I would stay there again.

I was pretty skeptical about doing the Honda Bay tour.  I figured that there would be too many people, mediocre beaches, and snorkeling with uninspiring coral and fish.  Turns out that I was mostly wrong!  There were a lot of people.  However, the beaches were nice, and the fish and coral were actually pretty good.  Living in the Philippines has really spoiled me.  I’m not as easily impressed with tropical beaches, as I was when I lived in WA.

I was seriously wanting to go out on this makeshift  dock.  After giving it some thought, I realized that I would likely be the heaviest person who had ever trusted it.  I gave it a miss.

Yellow Fin Tuna – The boat captain told me that he could catch about 10 on a good day.

It was a holiday, so I came across my first cock fight ever!  Notice that the Filipino version ties 4-inch “long-knives” to the roosters’ left legs.  In other countries with cock fighting, the knives are usually shorter.

(below) If you look closely, you’ll notice lots of blood squirting out.

Cock fights don’t end in draws or split decisions.

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Temple, Buddha, temple, Buddha, temple, Buddha.  That’s kind of what we did for three days in Bagan.  Basically, everyone rents bicycles and rides around the almost 2200 temples, which are packed into a 4 X 4 mile square.

We stayed at the Kumudara hotel, which is located in New Bagan.  Location was a big deal for me, because I knew that I would have to get up well before the sunrise and ride a bicycle to specific temples for sunrise pictures.  The best places for sunrise pictures are near Old Bagan, but they all cost well over $100 per night, and cater to bus-riding package tourists.  For me Kumudara fell right into the middle of the intersection of location, value and comfort.  As with most places in Myanmar, the staff were amazing, and would happily go out of their way to answer any question you might have, or make a phone call to book you a place in the next town.  We also rented a horse and carriage for one day.  The driver was a lot of fun, and took us around until well after sunset.  It was a great value, and I was happy for the chance to invest in him and his family.

Hot air ballooning is popular in Bagan.  It looked fun, but it would have cost Anne and I almost $700 to go for an approx 1-hr flight.  Too rich for my blood.

Some of the Buddhas were massive.  I’d guess that this one is over 40 feet tall.

Kind of a weird sunbeam thing.  I’m guessing it’s because I’m shooting with a cheapo 70-300 f4-5.6 lens.  I leave my pro telephoto lenses at home when I travel, because they are way too heavy for me.

If you look carefully, you’ll notice small photographers up on the temple shooting the sunrise.

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The Sepilok area is a chilled out place that features a couple of nicer places to stay, and a variety of wildlife sanctuaries and rainforest discovery centers.  I am not really into spending time at wildlife sanctuaries or discovery centers, but they did provide enough distraction to keep us entertained for about two days.  If I did return, I would quickly book a standard chalet at Sepilok Forest Edge Resort.  The chalet felt deluxe after the other places we’d been.  The food was good, and the pool was a nice added bonus.

During our time, we visited the Labuk Bay Proboscis Monkey Sanctuary, the Orang Utan Sanctuary, and the Sandakan Rainforest Discovery Centre.  None of them really grabbed me as being worth the trip, but they were OK.

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Kinabatangan River was truly an amazing place.  Seeing animals in the wild is a completely different experience than seeing them in a zoo.  Honestly, I’m not the biggest fan of zoos, or seeing animals.  One minute, and I’m ready to move on to the next thing.  This was different kind of experience.  Animals can be kind of cool!

We ended up getting connected with Osman’s homestay, which was right on the river.  There are other nature lodges one can choose from in the area, but they are much more expensive.  The deal with a homestay is that visitors experience what it’s like to hang out with a family, instead of just having a room somewhere.  I’m glad we got the chance to meet Osman and his family.  He is a passionate conservationist and educator, and knows the local environment as well as anyone.

We were happy that a herd of nearly sixty pygmy elephants was in the area.  What surprised me the most about the elephants was the noises that they would make.  One person commented, “now we know where the dinosaur noises used in Jurassic Park came from.”

Osman with a flower

At night, the herd of elephants moved through Osman’s yard.  At times, the elephants would bump and rub against the house causing it to shake.  Osman’s house is on stilts, which made it even more unstable and vulnerable.  We prayed that an elephant would would not get itself under the house and knock the entire thing over trying to get out.  Trying to sleep with wild elephants walking just a few feet from where we were sleeping proved to be impossible.  We tried starting a chainsaw, started small fires and using a spot light to try to get them to move away.  Nothing was successful.

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One of the things I love about living in Subic Bay is that I can easily get out of town and go camping on a Friday after school.  Anawangin Cove is only about a 1 hour car ride, and then a 45 minute boat ride from home.   Some friends and I did a little camping trip a few weeks back.

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*Lots of people have asked me if they could buy pictures.  Pictures are now for sale here.*

Piazzas, gelato, pasta, heat, churches, wine, and soccer.  Anne and I experienced large quantities of those things and much more as we traveled around Italy’s mid-section.  On a side note: it was hot.  Too hot.  For instance, one day it was almost 110 degrees!  When we left Seattle, it had not yet reached 75 degrees in well over 7 months!

*Lots of people have asked me if they could buy pictures.  Pictures are now for sale here.*

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