Travel Report from Peta:

Hi, my name is Peta. I’ve just returned from an amazing trip to Iran.  My highlight was walking around a town called Yazd.  This gorgeous town is in the south and has beautiful cobble stone roads in the old part of the city.  It’s known for its baklava.  Iranian people are lovely but as a single woman traveller I found it important to pay keen attention to the local rules: no singing (including humming!), no dancing and definitely no skin or hair showing. 

I have travelled a lot as a single woman (India, Sri Lanka, Burma, Malaysia, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, Cambodia, Indonesia) and I usually just pack as much cash as I am happy to have stolen. However, this is impossible when you are travelling in a country with trade sanctions and no ATMs that function for tourists e.g. Burma, Iran, Syria and Russia to a certain extent. 

So on my trip to Iran I had to carry thousands of dollars on me because I was frequently separated from my bags and concerned about other tourists or locals picking up my bag. 

 My Travel Bra was useful not only because it could carry the cash but also because it seemed to be resilient enough to stop the cash (US paper notes) getting soaked in my sweat. This is quite an achievement when you are wearing a Travel Bra under two layers of conservative clothing in the desert during an Iranian summer! 

 This photo of me where I have my orange scarf on is the day I went into the desert east of Kerman - it was 42 degrees but my cash stayed safe and dry in my Travel Bra :)

I didn't get a photo of me just in my Travel Bra because local people often went looking through my phone on the bus and I was a bit paranoid about images that I was carrying as well as not wanting to have a semi-naked photo on Instagram while I was in-country in Iran!  I got followed in Esfahan bizarre - that was definitely a low light. The would-be thieves were so persistent that I ended up getting a taxi to get away from them. 

I loved my Travel Bra so much that I have just bought two new Travel Bras to take with me to Java at Christmas time - always good to have emergency cash when you are bussing it through rural Indonesia ;)

 Peta

Creating a Start Up like The Travel Bra™ Company is exhilarating but exhausting. Any day now I am taking off to my current favourite rest and replenish health resort for under $1000 a week, the Ubud Sari in Bali. I will be kicking back with organic fruit mocktails and soothing foot massages with eyes closed and all worries gone.

This place has everything an Australian health retreat has, but for only a fifth of the cost. The detox programs are designed by a medical doctor and really work. I felt great – amazingly great – after I did the Body, Mind and Spirit Rejuvenation. It cost me less than $US1,000 for seven days and six nights and that included absolutely everything.

When you arrive at Ubud Sari (they pick you up at the airport), you have you own personal attendant throughout the week who oversees your detox and schedules all your activities. But don’t think it’s all just lying around detoxing. Man, it’s busy! – rice paddy walk in the morning, followed by yoga and meditation, followed by organic detox juices with special herbs. Then you have to fit in massages, facials, body scrubs, steams, deep tissue body work, shiatsu, candlenut scrubs, reflexology, more juices, more massages, saunas, swims and facials, as well as a cranio-sacral therapy treatment. My one piece of advice? Unless you are seriously ‘clogged’, skip the daily colonic hydrotherapy. Ubud Sari will tailor a program just for you and substitute these with extra massages or facials.

What I loved about Ubud Sari was also just hanging out in the open air organic vegan café where it was easy to meet other women and chat – main topic of conversation being of course how our lives were going to change when we got back home and how we really should do this detox thing more often.

My one vice was to sneak out every morning between treatments and down a delicious short black coffee that an enterprising young man sold me – here was a man who really understands what a woman wants!

I love Ubud – being up high it’s cool even in summer and there is lots of yoga places. My favourite? The Yoga Barn. And there are lots of organic vegan restaurants and
wonderful shops and galleries to explore. Every afternoon I spent an hour or so just walking the streets and rice paddies.

Oh, and Ubud Sari has wifi in the café, so you can still stay and work if you really have to.