Postcards from Bali
by joostay
Daily life in Tokyo, Japan | IKIMASHO!
Categories: Travel: Outside Japan • Tags: asia, bali, blog, design, ikimasho, indonesia, photography, travel
Tag: bali
IKIMASHO Luxury Stays: Viceroy Bali
by joostay
Daily life in Tokyo, Japan | IKIMASHO!
Categories: Luxury Travel, Travel: Outside Japan • Tags: asia, bali, ikimasho, indonesia, luxury, photography, travel, travel writer
Fried Bananas in Bali
by joostay
Quite often when you travel a lot – and particularly when you are a travel writer – so many little moments can get lost; photos relegated to the the depths of memory cards, overlooked in favour of bigger articles that are being written at the time. As a perfect example, I was freeing up some space on a card the other day when I came across a group of photos I hadn’t looked at since the day they were taken. Cycling […]
Categories: Travel: Outside Japan • Tags: asia, asian, backpacking, bali, blog, food, indonesia, japan, japanese, photography, sanur, se asia, travel, travel writer, travel writing, writing
IKIMASHO! x DAZED: EXPLORING AN ABANDONED (AND HAUNTED) THEME PARK IN INDONESIA
by joostay
“When the park was dissolved, the owners left the crocodiles there to become wild. There’s an urban legend that the crocodiles ate humans, another reason why the Balinese won’t go near the place” Of all my travels last year, discovering an abandoned theme park on the east coast of Bali was one of the highlights. I wrote a bit about it here on IKIMASHO! – but DAZED have picked up the scent (along with the crocodiles) so here’s my full report […]
Categories: Travel: Outside Japan • Tags: bali, blog, dazed, design, digital, haikyo, ikimasho, indonesia, japan, japanese, journalism, photography, taman festival, tokyo, urban exploration
IKIMASHO Luxury Stays: Villa Sabandari, Ubud, Bali
by joostay
Two days of blissfully doing nothing in Bali’s cultural capital
Categories: Luxury Travel, Travel: Outside Japan • Tags: asia, bali, boutique, CREATIVE, design, holiday, hotel, ikimasho, inaka, indonesia, interior design, japan, luxury, nature, photography, review, rice fields, se asia, tokyo, travel, ubud, video, wildlife
IKIMASHO! IN THE FINAL FOR BEST TRAVEL BLOG (+ OCTOBER TRAVEL PLANS)
by joostay
❤ THANK YOU! / ありがとう! ❤ IKIMASHO! has made it through to the final for Best Travel Blog in this year’s Blog Awards Ireland. Thank you to everyone who voted for me! I guess now it’s a case of whether the judges go for a straight down-the-line entry or my oddball stuff. To be honest, despite there being a number of great travel blogs out there, there are also far too many generic sites around today: the whole scene is swamped with people […]
Categories: Travel: Outside Japan • Tags: asia, bali, CREATIVITY, festival, ijen, indonesia, photography, se asia, thailand, travel, video, writing
MY CRAPPY INDONESIAN GYM JUST GOT CRAPPIER
by joostay
SAY HELLO TO COCONUT! Followers of this blog will by now be well aware of my fondness for tracking down crappy local gyms in new countries I visit. It all started when I visited Nusa Lembongan in 2013 – an island off the coast of Bali. During my stint there I found a hilariously bad (yet amazing) gym which was basically just a wooden shack. Fast forward a few years and I was back on Lembongan last week, so of […]
Categories: Travel: Outside Japan • Tags: asia, bali, bodybuilding, coconut, fitness, funny, gym, ikimasho, indonesia, japan, mens fitness, photography, running, story, tokyo, travel, weightlifting, weights, working out, workout
Taman Festival: Abandoned Theme Park in Bali, Indonesia
by joostay
Exploring the Indonesian theme park with no visitors – not living ones anyway… Right now I’m back on mainland Bali after spending a week on the small island of Lembongan off the east coast. During my time on the island I spoke a few times to a local guy called Niko about ghosts and Indonesian folklore: I specifically wanted to learn about the Pontianak – vampiric ghosts which are said to be the spirits of women who died while pregnant. (The city of […]
Categories: Travel: Outside Japan • Tags: abandoned, bali, bizarre, CREATIVE, ghost hunting, ghosts, haikyo, indonesia, old, photography, sanur, spirits, street, taman festival park, travel, unusual, urban, urban exploration, video
HELLRIDES: KUALA LUMPUR (MALAYSIA) TO NUSA LEMBONGAN (BALI)
by joostay
Back to Bali – and escaping the End of Days. I’ve written a bit before about Hellrides – those horribly twisted and depraved long-distance drives my old band used to do every night in order to play a farcical gig in front of no one. My touring days may be behind me, but travelling in Asia often means cramped conditions, squalid surroundings and not quite knowing if you’ll end up at your intended final destination. Not much change from playing on the DIY punk circuit then, […]
Categories: Travel: Outside Japan • Tags: airplane, bali, belfast, boat, CREATIVE, dangerfields, hellride, indonesia, ireland, journey, northern ireland, photography, punk, punk rock, story, train, travel
IKIMASHO! x WANDERLUST [The World’s Lamest Gyms]
by joostay
“I asked how much the gym was and he told me he didn’t know. He said he just bought the owner petrol now and again. I told him I didn’t have any petrol so he said for me to just go in and use it for as long as I wanted. So in I went.” I’m in Wanderlust Magazine this month talking about some of the funniest gyms I’ve come across on my travels. Check it out here.
Categories: Travel: Outside Japan • Tags: bali, bangkok, blog, fitness, gyms, ikimasho, indonesia, japan, marrakech, morocco, thailand, tokyo, travel, working out
Welcome to my crappy Indonesian gym
by joostay
Aircon? Nope. Equipment? Nope. Safety? Nope. Badly cut-out clippings of stumpy men on the walls? Yup. Welcome to my crappy Indonesian gym. I just renewed my gym membership in Tokyo. It’s expensive. Like proper expensive. Most gyms over here run in the region of ¥10,000 a month (£60). That’s a pretty standard rate. There are cheaper ones to be found, but this one is just down the road from my house and has pretty much everything I want. With winter just […]
Categories: Travel: Outside Japan • Tags: backpacking, bali, gym, indonesia, island, lembongan, membership, nusa lembongan, se asia, south east asia, travel
Beautiful Bali: In the Shadow of Gunung Agung
by joostay
Beneath a sacred volcano lies a simpler way of life soaked in tradition The Balinese believe that Mount Agung is a replica of Mount Meru – the sacred Hindu mountain considered to be the central axis of the universe. Mythical tales tell of it being 672,000 miles high – with the sun and the all planets of the Solar System revolving around it as one single unit. It’s the be-all and end-all of everything. The centre of all the physical, metaphysical and spiritual universes. In short, a […]
Categories: Travel: Outside Japan • Tags: backpacking, bali, beautiful, coast, indonesia, nusa lembongan, nusa penida, se asia, seaweed farming, south east asia, sunset
Kecak: Balinese Fire Dancing
by joostay
What better way to spend the night than with a trance-inducing exorcism dance. It’s 8pm in Ubud and the wind is picking up. Sitting in silence in the grounds of a ruined temple I notice that the dark trees surrounding the perimeter are almost indistinguishable from the darker clouds above. It’s hot. Thunder cracks in the distance. A lone gust threatens to extinguish a long line of lanterns that climb the set of crumbling stone stairs. The weather dies down, and in […]
Categories: Travel: Outside Japan • Tags: backpacking, bali, dancing, fire, indonesia, kecak, ritual, south east asia, travel, tribal, ubud
Indonesian Independence Day
by joostay
PROCLAMATION WE THE PEOPLE OF INDONESIA HEREBY DECLARE THE INDEPENDENCE OF INDONESIA. MATTERS WHICH CONCERN THE TRANSFER OF POWER AND OTHER THINGS WILL BE EXECUTED BY CAREFUL MEANS AND IN THE SHORTEST POSSIBLE TIME. DJAKARTA, 17 AUGUST 1945 IN THE NAME OF THE PEOPLE OF INDONESIA SOEKARNO—HATTA
Categories: Travel: Outside Japan • Tags: 1945, asia, backpacking, bali, denpasar, festival, independence day, independent, indonesia
The day I saw a body being burned in Denpasar
by joostay
A chance encounter with Ngaben – the traditional Balinese Cremation Ceremony. My curiosity is going to get the better of me some day, I swear. Cycling round the potholed streets of Denpasar I was prepared for the traffic, the pollution, the general insanity. Pure city life in SE Asia is often a free-for-all: people selling animals (dead or alive) on the street, kids playing in desolate alleyways, a general feeling of structured chaos. I’m used to it. What I didn’t […]
Categories: Travel: Outside Japan • Tags: backpacking, bali, buddhist, ceremony, cremation, denpasar, hindu, indonesia, ngaben, reincarnation, south east asia, travel
Visiting Denpasar: The only tourist in town
by joostay
Like it or loathe it, Bali’s bustling capital doesn’t care what you think of it. Bali’s capital, Denpasar, is untamed. There’s something about it that sets it apart from Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh, Phnom Penh et al… cities which, over the last fifteen years, have become firmly established on the tourist trail. These cities, once exotic, are now epicentres for the travel industry, with virtually all foreign visitors on the SE Asia loop passing through them. As a result, travelling […]
Categories: Travel: Outside Japan • Tags: backpacking, bali, bangkok, cambodia, denpasar, guidebook, hostel, hotel, indonesia, kites, Kuta, puputan square, sanur, satay, south east asia, street food, thailand, travel
To infinity & beyond…
by joostay
∞ Hey mister where you going? Nowhere really, I’m just walking. Where to? I don’t know. You want a ride? Good price. Where to? I don’t know, where you going? Nowhere really, I’m just walking. Where to? I don’t know. You want a ride? Where to? I don’t know, where you going? Nowhere really, I’m just walking. ∞
Categories: Travel: Outside Japan • Tags: bali, indonesia, indonesian, motorbike, nusa lembongan, poetry, scooter, south east asia, taxi, travel
A little village in the forest
by joostay
No other way to describe it really. Pure rural Asia. Every time I’m faced with a scene like this I’m reminded of how crazy modern life has become. You’ll not find anyone bitching about how their $5 Starbucks cappuccino isn’t hot enough here. Actually this compound is probably better than some of the shithole venues I played with in my old band. Better accommodation anyway. I stumbled across it purely by accident in the middle of nowhere on Nusa Lembongan, Bali. […]
Categories: Travel: Outside Japan • Tags: bali, camping, indonesia, local life, nusa lembongan, remote, rural, south east asia, travel, village
Cliff Jumping in Bali
by joostay
Believe me, 43ft looks a long way down from the top… Cycling round Nusa Lembangon and Nusa Cengingan – two islands off the east coast of Bali – is a great adventure. Starting off at Jungut Batu and circling the circumferences you’ll come across remote mangrove swamps, hidden villages and the bluest water you’ve ever seen at the aptly named, Blue Lagoon. What makes this rugged coastline even more spectacular is that you can jump off a 43ft high cliff […]
Categories: Travel: Outside Japan • Tags: backpacking, bali, blue lagoon, cliff jumping, diving, extreme sports, indonesia, nusa ceningan, nusa lembangon, south east asia, travel
The Early Risers of Sanur
by joostay
The early bird catches the worm. Or the sweetcorn. It’s 7am in Sanur, Bali, and the beach is buzzing. In a good way. Locals hit the sand from sunrise, eating breakfast, gossiping, swimming. There are no tourists about. Only a sprinkling of foreigners inhabit Sanur beach during the afternoon, but during the morning it’s strictly a Balinese affair. Boys fly colourful geometric kites overhead while old toothless women toast sweetcorn on makeshift grills. It’s peaceful, certain parts of the beach […]
Categories: Travel: Outside Japan • Tags: backpacking, bali, beach, indonesia, morning, sanur, south east asia, travel
Blackout over Lembangon
by joostay
The smell of a mosquito coil is unmistakable. I must be passing a shop or someone’s house. I can’t tell. It’s pitch black. As I pass an alleyway I squint to see a pair of eyes peering back at me, the glow of a cigarette burning brighter as he or she takes a long, deep drag. Further down the street the headlights of a dozen mopeds dance in symphony like fireflies, swerving back and forth back and forth to avoid […]
Categories: Travel: Outside Japan • Tags: backpacking, bali, blackout, electric, lembongan, nusa, power, satay, south east asia, street food, travel
Smiling with the Indonesian artists of tomorrow
by joostay
Travel with a smile and the whole world smiles with you… OK, brace yourself. I’m about to say something extremely cheesy so please bear with me. Someone once asked me what the most important thing was to pack when going to Asia. I simply replied, “a smile.” Cheesy or not, I still stand by it. It goes for whatever country you visit. Body language is universal. I can’t speak Burmese but in the past I’ve been beckoned over to eat […]
Categories: Travel: Outside Japan • Tags: art, backpacking, bali, experiences, guidebook, indonesia, sanur, smile, south east asia, travel
Global Domination. Sort of.
by joostay
Supper in Tokyo. Breakfast in Kuala Lumpur. Lunch in Jakarta. Dinner in Bali. When I was still a wee lad in short trousers I remember my grandparents telling me that in ‘their day’ a ‘holiday’ meant taking the suicide-inducing local train from Belfast to Bangor for the afternoon. That’s a 30-minute journey. 14 miles. To eat a poke (that’s an ice cream to you and me), dunk their feet in the paddling pool and then go home again. I don’t […]
Categories: Travel: Outside Japan • Tags: bali, bangor, beach, belfast, indonesia, japan, java, kuala lumpur, malaysia, northern ireland, south east asia, sun, tokyo, train, travel
Summer Plans: Bali & beyond
by joostay
I’ve been in Japan 16 months now and I’m grateful for the opportunities living here has given me. In that time I’ve been to Taiwan twice, watched the sun set over the Temples of Bagan in Myanmar, drank moonshine in my friend’s apartment in Bangkok and next month I’m off to explore Bali. Time/cash permitting I’d also love to hit the Philippines before the end of the year. In August I’ll also be visiting Nagoya for the first time for […]
Categories: Travel: Outside Japan • Tags: bali, food, holidays, indonesia, japan, south east asia, summer, tokyo, travel, ubud, vacation
IKIMASHO! 