On leaving Yogya a rather spacious, if not speedy, train took us through Java to Bandung. What a strange place that is...Java's second largest city and it has more shopping malls than you can shake a stick at. Bandung served us well as we were both in desperate need of some 'normal' (read appropriate for climates cooler than 30 degrees) clothes. This strange city has some rather incredible outlet shopping, we're not talking Bicester here, this is quite simply fabulous. Managing to waste the best part of a day in the wonderful Ruma Mode stocking up on jeans, t-shirts, jumpers and a wonderful Cath Kidston bag we dragged ourselves back to the hotel. Cast your mind back to the 90's and conjure up the image of that scene in Pretty Woman with all the shopping bags; well it was almost like that, minus the hat box!

Unfortunately that's about all there is to report on Bandung, other than: our first Edamame for a long time, yum. Harry Potter in the cinema with lashings of butter salt popcorn and my first ever manicure by a man (don't ask, it was pretty rubbish).

So here we are now in Jakarta, treating ourselves to a little luxury for our 1st wedding anniversary. The hotel is rather lovely with the most incredible breakfast buffet, cheese, bread and more cheese - divine.

Jakarta is a typical Asian capital city, full to bursting point with people, cars, buses and pollution; it takes hours to get anywhere as the traffic is horrendous! A little jaunt into the abyss took us shopping for a belated 30th birthday pressie for moi, what a lucky girl. Many hours and some difficult decisions later I am now the proud owner of some incredibly beautiful seawater pearls, strung to my design before our eyes. Thanks to everyone for their best wishes on our anniversary, we had a wonderful day and were able to toast our first year of marriage with some utterly exorbitant cocktails. The bubbly will just have to wait until we are back in a world where wine and all things related are not so utterly overpriced.

Tomorrow marks our last day in Indonesia as we board our flight to Singapore for a brief stopover and then it's on to Darwin, Cairns and New Zealand. Too many flights, too little time.