Science is amazing. After 2 nights of transition back in Kuta, Bali (all journeys seem to lead back to Bali!), we boarded a plane at 1:30 am July 3rd to Hong Kong. After landing in the early morning, we hung out in a very rainy, foggy Hong Kong for a few hours before boarding another flight at 3:30 pm (same time zone as Bali) to Toronto. This longest flight of our lives lasted FIFTEEN HOURS and landed us in the early evening...still on July 3rd. The ultimate example of productivity.

Our last 2 nights in that all too familiar area of Bali mostly consisted of buying some last minute souvenirs, and finally making a sunset visit to Uluwatu Temple - a temple situated high up on a cliff overlooking the sea - one of the iconic landmarks of Bali. We have finally gotten better at this whole haggling thing, and managed to scrape about $10 off the private car journey there, so go us! A couple of days before the big journey home, Mount Agung on Bali erupted again (it has been quite active in the past several months), and temporarily closed the airport. There were some moments wondering if we were essentially going to be moving to Bali short term, but it quieted down enough that we left when we intended to, and had a smooth, lonoooog journey back to Canada. It's easy for us to joke about, but the volcanic activity is of course a real danger to life and livelihood of the locals, so we hope that there are no dangerous major eruptions in the near future for them.

Being back in Canada after so much time abroad is...not as strange as we thought it would be. 13 years ago when we lived in England for a year, we remember feeling a strange out of body experience when we returned, which has not happened this time. Perhaps because we have travelled so extensively since then, or maybe because advanced technology allowed us to feel so much more connected to home than in 2005? We have been given such warm welcomes from our families and friends, and we have loved expanding on our stories in person. We have felt such relief at being able to turn on the tap at any time and drink as much water as we want, and finally feel truly hydrated!

We have about 6 weeks of relaxation at home before we start Phase 2 of "The Days Of Our Leaves". At the end of August we will fly to London for 6 months where Clare will do supply teaching/short term work, and Troy will do some online ESL teaching. Our plan is to then head back to southeast Asia for some further exploration, but this time, on a very shoestring budget. So we will revert from our comfortable 30-something style of travel back to one of a 22 year old budget backpacker, and we are super excited about this challenge. See you in September for the continuation of the journey!