From Cairns we landed in Bali late at night. The rain
was lashing down and we had no accommodation booked which was not a clever
idea. I was covered in bites and my leg had swollen up to twice its normal size
after the flight giving me a very unattractive cankle. We went into an internet
shop and quickly realised that most of the places for that night were already
booked up. After a bit of a panic we managed to find a place in Kuta. We didn't
really want to go to Kuta as we had heard that it was a bit of a scummy place,
however we actually had a good day there. Our hostel was quite nice and there
were a lot of young people staying there which was good because we made two
friends, Katy and Simon to explore with the next day. Unfortunately the
weather hadn't cleared up in the morning but we still found plenty to do. I
bought a new dress and then took my bag to the laundrette and had the entire lot
washed, dried and ironed for about six quid. This was the biggest luxury after
sniffing clothes before wearing them towards the end of Australia.
After doing this we went to explore and I was
desperate to get some tiger balm (I was literally covered in bites after
staying in Queensland). We walked up and down the streets, firstly buying some
umbrellas for about 50p. We got fairly hassled but it was quite nice as it made
it such a lively atmosphere.
After we were fully drenched we went and had massages.
These were nice but also pretty brutal. I could hear the others all getting
slapped and whacked about around me. I also had a pedicure and the whole lot
only cost about 6/7quid. Amazing.
We had a delicious
meal that night- just because we can- and booked our ferry to the Gili islands
for the next day.
It was STILL raining the next day but we sailed off to
Gili Trawangan regardless- picking up an extra friend, Phil, on the
way- and when we arrived the weather was boiling hot, hooray! The sea is
such a gorgeous colour here and it’s so nice to be on such a small place where
they don't even have cars.
However, it’s also a massive party island. There are
people out all night every night and magic mushrooms are legal here so there
are signs up everywhere and little Indonesian people grinning at you saying
"mushi mushi".
We decided to do a snorkelling trip whilst we were here.
I really wanted to do this because we were told we would almost certainly see
turtles in the water (we missed out on these on the reef). Unfortunately for us
what started out as a beautiful day ended as a bit of a horror show. We stopped
at two places and saw some interesting fish, including Nemo and Gill. At
lunchtime we went to another Gili Island called Gili Air and had an omelette
for about £1.00. However when we set off it started raining and we could see
that the direction we were heading in looked a bit stormy. This was an
understatement. I spent most of the journey huddled under my sopping wet towel,
occasionally looking up to see the water level with the boat or feeling
splashes hitting my back. I think most people thought we were going to capsize
and at one point I turned round to see a group of people, including
Katy, clutching life jackets. Phil and Simon had also put their snorkels back
on because of all the water splashing in their faces. We eventually made it
back to a huge cheer off everyone on board. It seemed as though the island had
taken a pretty big hit from the storm too because the streets were completely
flooded and we had to walk through a small river to get back to our hostel.
The sun is back out today and the streets look as if
nothing had ever happened. We are hoping to go back to Bali tomorrow and stay
in Ubud where 'Eat Pray Love' was filmed. I can't wait as they apparently have
fantastic markets there.
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