Off Road

On monday I went to the Bali Safari and Marine Park. For about £25 you can go on the Safari journey, catch any show and have your photo taken with either a baby orangutan or a lion cub - who would choose the orangutan over a lion?!

The tour takes you through 'Indonesia', 'India' and 'Africa' where you will find species native to these countries. The honey bears were adorable and the rhinos were intimidating. The hippos looked pretty placid but remain deathly and the antelope were poised and pretty. The zebras were nonchalant and the wilderbeast were lazy. The stalks were still and the lions were restless. And as for the tigers, my favourite kind of cat, well they were just majestic. There were three of them, and one swaggered right past my door so I could get a good look at his beautiful face.

I didn't get a great photo of them but here is a video of a stunning white tiger at feeding time:





Back in the main park, I checked out some pythons, bats, comodos and even a leopard who seemed to have his eye on something in the water below. He crouched down low and tucked his ears back -wow he was gorgeous. Just one careless move over the railing and I wouldn't be alive to tell you about it.

There were also some very sociable elephants who kept wanting to 'shake hands' with their trunks; they loved having their picture taken and kept posing whenever I raised my camera. For some reason, the pictures of them won't upload so I'm sorry you won't get to see their happy faces but I'll find some other way to share them with you.

And so, the picture with the lion cub. I was in two minds about whether or not I should post this picture. Of course I was over the moon to be able to get close with a lion and feel its fur under my fingers and marvel at its beauty. Of course I was going to have the picture taken regardless. But one thing that niggles at my ethos on animals is that I believe the lion was heavily sedated. I know this happens and I'm not naive - they do this to animals in captivity all over the world. But my heart sank when I stood in that queue and watched how he just wanted to lay down and close his eyes. The tamer kept waking him up for each photo.

It didn't feel great and it made me realise that there wasn't much I could do about it. But it will be the one and only time I ever do such a thing. The only thing I could do, was pour out lots of love, warmth and healing to him as I stroked his coat.


The photo is for me to share with you, but to remind me that animals need our love and awareness more than ever. It has promtped me to look into what I can actively do for wildlife.

And in other news, we have celebrated yet another birthday, Franck turned 31 on Monday. There was sangria, live music and cake - hoorah!

I also stupidly got the date of my hotel checkout wrong and had to leave earlier than I had thought. So I'm now staying in Batubulan, a much more remote area that doesn't have internet so I have come to Sanur today to settle down in a coffee shop to write this. I will do my best to keep posting and not fall off the radar.

Stay tuned.