20/1/2012 - "No thank you"

My last few days in Australia were lovely ones, and I thoroughly embraced being mothered by Lyn (thanks Lyn!) since it's been so long since I've seen my own Mum. My weight loss is going.. I can't say well but it's definitely going, albeit very slowly. It's happening though. It was really difficult to leave Australia, I cannot believe how quickly the six weeks I was there went.

Yesterday I spent the whole day travelling. Got up at 4am, to get on the train at East Hills at 5.03am, to get to the airport for 5.30am to fly at 6am. After the two hours to Brisbane, I got the T-Bus to the international terminal and got in the biggest queue of my life to check-in for my flight to Singapore. 40 minutes of queueing with my bag later and I'd finally checked in and headed through to departures to get a coffee. Of course I forgot about security so had two sips of it then had to throw it away. Bugger. Anyhow I boarded and as expected, Singapore airlines was lovely, and the stewardess uniforms were just beautiful. It was seven hours to Singapore, with two meals and I watched lots of films. One of them was One Day with Anne Hathaway. I like Anne Hathaway and I liked her character in this but what I didn't like was her accent. To put on a British accent is fine but the accent she put on was occasionally Northern and just wasn't right.

Then a change at Singapore which had me sprint across the airport. The real kicker was that I could see my gate from the gate I arrived at, but if you imagine that the airport is in a horseshoe, gate 42 I could see through the window to be all the way around. Anyhow, the last flight was okay, even more airline food and another movie and I got into Denpasar at around 7pm. Everyone had told me I'd practically have to fight my way through the airport to get to my bag, then to a taxi, but it was fine. Hectic? Sure, and it was no Heathrow but it was fine. Got my visa and picked up my bag, realising it was unbelievably hot and I was wearing a hoody. It was unbelievably busy outside, people everywhere, but I found the taxi shop and got my fixed price (95,000rp) taxi to BIG Pineapple Backpackers in Sanur. If you've travelled a lot, you'll know that when you get to your accommodation you get a gut feeling that it will either be good, bad, or just okay. This was brilliant. It had a pool and the owners were lovely, besides that it had the same kind of feel as Sequoia Lodge in Picton had, just chilled and awesome. I had to get some sleep, so the real fun started the next day.

I was checking my emails when two girls, now I know they were Anna and Nicole, asked if anyone else wanted to get a driver with them for the day and go out. 'Getting a driver' all sounds very posh, but split between us it cost 80,000 (around 6 pounds) to have him for 8 hours, and there's no way any of us could drive in Bali traffic. Already I've seen a whole family on a moped, and they carry ridiculous things on them too! Anyhow, our guide was called Wyan (which means first born in Balinese) and our driver was called Gidday. The first stop was a traditional Balinese house, where a family of painters lived, but not before we picked up two more guys at the hostel, both from Finland. The paintings at the house were so beautiful, I think I will buy one before I leave because they are amazing.They talked to us about the different stages of making them and I had a go at playing some Balinese music.

I was obviously a pro.

After that, we headed out to see the rice paddies, even though it wasn't the season for it. It's the wet season here so it rains lots. This is where I first encountered the peddlers trying to sell you things, the amount of times I've smiled and said "No thank you" in the last few days is silly. At first I felt bad, especially when they were kids, to say no, but I literally could not buy all of their things even if I wanted to.

Soaked through.

The next stop was a coffee plantation for Bali coffee, which is apparently made from Mongoose waste. The conversation with the girl there was hilarious as she obviously had a speech, complete with actions, for it. "The mongoose selects the best beans, he eats it, it ferments in his tummy, then it comes out."  I must have heard that five or six times until Anna said "So it's shit?" and she said "Yes, it's shit."

This guy roasts coffee all day!

Mongoose coffee and sweet potato snacks.

Different kinds of coffee/tea for us to taste.

I ended up buying some chocolate coffee, ginseng coffee and cocoa which were all lovely. Next stop, the monkey forest. I'd twisted my ankle the day before, so I'd been limping around like an idiot and it really had started to hurt. No worries though, I powered on through. The monkey forest was really cool, they're sacred animals here so can go pretty much where ever they want. I did not want one on me though, so gave them a wide berth.

Look at the baby!

Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.

 After the monkey forest in Ubud, the rain had finally stopped and we went and had a drink up at the waterfall. Wyan told us the water was usually clear but because of the rain it had gotten muddy.

Our last stop was Jimbaran beach, where we'd been told you could get the best seafood in Bali. And it sure was good. Our table was on the beach, there was music and dancing and fireworks in the background and we were maybe 10ft away from the sea so the waves were crashing. No only that but the platters we had ordered were just delicious, as well as my drink being a young coconut, quite literally. It was paradise.

Before

And after.

These guys were great, they played Wild World for us!

That night we were all pretty exhausted, so we spent it drinking beer and laying in the pool watching movies. It's such a hard life huh? Me and the guys went on a mission for more beer at around 2am, because nothing ever shuts in Bali, and I ended up going in my pajamas. Excellent. We'd booked Wyan for the next day too and he was coming at 9am, which was a bit painful to say the least.

The next morning came however, and we went to see an hour long dance/play in Balinese masks and such, joined by a Canadian guy called Kevin. I can't say it was bad, the actors/dancers were very talented and the costumes were beautiful, but I definitely didn't understand what was going on and our guide sheets only offered a limited explanation of good and bad spirits, nonetheless I enjoyed it!

The tiger and the monkey.

Being chased by a witch.

The band.

A Ranga (a bad spirit)

Another Ranga

For lunch that day, Wyan showed us to a restaurant overlooking the second biggest(?) volcano is Bali which was surrounded by a beautiful lake. In all honesty, the food wasn't great and I'm sure Wyan got commission for taking us there, but the view was magnificent. 

Just breathtaking no?

Our final stop for the day was Padang-Padang beach, apparently the nicest beach in Bali. It was small and cute, the sand was white and the water clear. It was paradise. I swam, but hadn't changed before we left or bought a towel, so that was fun getting changed underneath my clothes and being wet the whole way home... so worth it though.

That night I stayed in because my ankle was giving me so much grief, I even bandaged it up for support. The others went out though, to Manic Organic to do salsa dancing. I wish I could of gone but I only would have hobbled around the dance floor, more ungracefully than I usually do. Besides that, I still hadn't recovered from my day of flying. In the morning though, I met the others at Sanur beach, where we spent most of the day laying on sun loungers drinking beer and listening to music. Like I say, a hard life. They were all having lunch when I found them but the heat is making me not want to eat so I had a liquid lunch. We wandered back into town and I was going to get a hot stone massage with Anna but actually couldn't be bothered to walk there it was so hot outside, so I stayed with the guys and had a beer and some homemade potato chips with aioli which were possibly the best bar snack I've ever had! After Anna came back, we decided on pizza for dinner. Actually everyone else did, I just had a beer, again. We started walking back then the guys decided to get their tickets to the Gili Islands, I'd been debating on whether to go with them or not so I went with them to book it and figured I'd decide on the way. When we got to the place, after a bit of haggling, the guy said 550,000rp, but 500,000rp for three people. I didn't really have any choice after that though huh? So despite having to be up at 6am to get to the harbour, we recruited Meagan from Australia and went out to Kuta that night to what Kevin called 'Five Floors of Fun' or officially, the Skydome. It really was five floors of bars and cheap drinks. We stuffed five of us into a four person taxi and Kevin bartered away with the driver for what turned out to be a rip-off price. Sadly, I went to the ATM and realised my credit card wasn't in my purse and freaked out just a little. Actually, I handled it really well and finally accepted that it probably hadn't bee stolen, more like I had left it in the ATM because in Bali, the ATM gives you your money first and takes ages to give you back your card. I wasn't the only one who had done it either. Decided not to worry about it too much and proceeded to get absolutely wasted. We ended up on the SkyTerrace which was the top floor, watching the fire dancers show when we realised we had lost the others, who after five floors of searching were nowhere to be found, so we got a taxi back. Drunken haggling was no better with us still paying 100,000rp back to Sanur. All was well.

Until the next morning when Mia woke us up to tell us our taxi driver to the harbour had been waiting for 20 minutes. Fuck. I'm not sure I've ever got dressed/packed so quickly in my whole entire life, but we did okay and got out pretty quickly. It seemed like ages to the harbour and I still hadn't cancelled my card because I have no money on my phone or internet, so I was worrying about that. We got to the harbour on 2 hours of sleep, and some random guy took my bag. Bali 101 is do not let people take your bag but I was just so exhausted. I was lucky, he worked for our boat company. After waiting for a bit we got on our speedboat across to the Gili Islands. I don't get seasick, but the speedboat mixed with last night's alcohol was deadly, so I curled up in my chair and went to sleep, sucking my thumb apparently as an incriminating picture reveals.

When we arrived we found some accommodation pretty quickly, our own bungalow without minutes of the beach for 200,000rp a night. Sweet as. We're on the middle sized Gili Island, of which there are three, and it is just phenomenal. People are so lovely, the guy who seems to run our bungalow is so friendly as is literally everyone else here. It's funny though, everyone will offer you weed. The guy at the bungalows was onto it within the first half an hour, then some other guy came along offering us mushrooms and telling us about the full moon parties and trying to talk to me about the drug scene in England, as if I have any idea. He finally took no for an answer and left though. So that was yesterday. We spent the rest of the day sitting around drinking, smoking, watching How I Met Your Mother and avoiding the rain. We did venture out for food and internet but the rain kinda put a downer on things.

Today started with breakfast on the beach then we took a walk around the whole island which at my guess took around 2 hours with a couple of stops for drinks, since it was so freaking hot outside. And that brings us up to now. I think we might go out tonight but if not then c'est la vie. I've probably missed out a million little details that I wanted to tell you all about but which I have forgotten, but my credit card problem has been fixed since I have my emergency one and my Mum is an absolute superstar and sorted it all out at home with cancelling the card etc. Then hopefully Dom will be able to bring the new card to Vietnam in 9 days - exciting stuff!

PS. I'm home in 27 days, who's excited?!