Tugu Farewell
Sadly, we had to leave the Tugu on Sunday afternoon! It was hard to leave after such a great stay. We left around 3 PM to head toward the airport. Our flight the next morning was leaving early and we wanted to be closer to the airport. On the 1.5 hour drive back to town, we went through the “monkey forest” – a couple of miles over a mountain – and there were monkeys everywhere. Tourists feed them, so they just hang out by the side of the road hoping for hand-outs.
We checked into a blah-but-clean hotel and headed home the next morning. To only go three time zones, it sure takes a long time! By the time we got home, 24 hours had elapsed since we got up that morning in Lombok (we came home via Jakarta and Bangkok). Unfortunately, the weather in Islamabad was bad, so our scheduled 10 PM arrival was delayed until 3 AM – the rest of the time we spent sitting on the plane in Lahore, where we were diverted.
The rest of the week, we just stayed home – it was great to see little Flavie and she is happy we came back! She’s been sitting in my lap all week. We’ve watched tons of television and read, and really enjoyed the last few days of our vacation.
Friday night we went to dinner with a friend at the Marriott for sushi. Yesterday afternoon, John smoked a duck and some chickens – yum! And this morning, we attempted to hike up the Margalla Hills to Monal Restaurant. Wow – it’s a long way! We did see some great wildlife, including a bunch of monkeys (one was very curious and got really close to us) and a huge (I mean HUGE) momma boar and six tiny babies. We got about halfway up before I threw in the towel. Our buddy kept going while John and I walked back down the hill to get the car – we drove up to the restaurant and picked up our friend at the top. We sat outside and had lunch and enjoyed the wind and the view.