The Big Day

The chapel overlooks Uluwatu

Originally, we were supposed to fly straight home from India, but Eric and Leah decided to get married in Bali, so that gave us a good excuse to add three Indonesian weeks onto the end of the trip. The big day came, and the weather was good, and the setting was stunning, and it was a wonderfully happy way to finish off our trip.

Paparazzi

Leah dabs away the happy tears, Eric wipes away the sweat.

Quite the setting

Angie in her sari, which behaved itself and stayed in place. Phew.

Gili Air Breakfast

The fruit, the coffee and the view

The location

Gili Air

Rustbucket transportation

To the Shore! Atlantic City!!

The boardwalk

On the Eastern side of America, when you feel like some time at the beach, you don't go to the coast, you go to the shore. We went to the shore, to Atlantic City. Atlantic City is a beachside mini-Vegas with all the class and sophistication you would expect from a gambling town. The boardwalk is the heart of the city. It runs along the beach and is lined with huge casinos, malls, gaming parlours and an infinite number of souvenir shops selling some really, really nice stuff.

Some of the classier merchandise

Perhaps the most shocking revelation I've had in a while came while we were strolling along the boards. It turns out that the original game of Monopoly was not based on London, but actually based on the Atlantic City boardwalk! Egads! It took me a while to get over that.

Cold water

One mall had beach-themed resting areas set high above the waves

Globe of DEATH!!

We went to a restaurant that gave out free paper hats

Surfer

Zihuatenago

The Zihuatenago 'ruins', an abandoned and crumbling beachfront hotel

Yet another sleepy little beach town...

Fishermen

La Ticla

Beachfront cacti

Another inspiring room, this time made completely out of concrete (even the bedheads)

Highway 200, the coast road

Barra de Nexpa

Barra de Nexpa is a miniscule village (population: 50) sitting in front of a fabulous left-hand point break. We spent a few days there: surfing and enjoying hammock time.

Our beachfront shack

When the Navy Designs Your Beachfront Boardwalk...

...it may look as uninspiring as this. Zihuatenago, Mexico

Dune Buggy Failure

I was in the middle of photograping this wave (which was enormous), when this buggy putted past me.

It had struggled on the soft sand, but on the nice, hard damp sand close to shore, it did much better

Almost too well

...until the girl tried to do a u-turn, when the buggy got a bit stuck on the damper sand. The girl tried her best to retrieve it.

Then a large wave came in

Much to everyone's dismay.

They dragged it out, and pushed back to the nice, firm bitumen.