Back to Bali for a wee bit before we headed on to Oz. We had enjoyed the waterpark so much the first time we headed back again, still as good. We both took a surf lesson and have been doing a fair bit of surfing since, great fun but pretty knackering with all that paddling. I have been out most days and have learnd about gettin up speed and hitting the bigger waves.
At the time Les on the other hand, it seemed to be her turn for a bit of food poisoning, up all night and feelin terrible for a few days, a day or so of chilling by our nice pool seemed to do the trick.
We met up again with Sophie and Saskia for a couple of Arak (local rice wine) cocktails again on their last night in Kuta before they had to head back to Belgium.
The rest of the time we just beached and chilled at the pool. While we were there the Indonesian Rupiah nosedived so all the stuff in the Quiksilver and Billabong shops got a lot cheaper so we had a nice big shopping spree before we headed to the airport.
We also heard there was a big earthquake in Sulawesi (not to far from Bali) but we never heard/felt a thing strangely enough, didnt know anythin about it til dad told me and no there was no bomb threats etc the media was blowing it all out of proportion, but it did help with making things a good bit cheaper and quieter.
Headin to Oz tonight canna wait!!!
From Bali we had heard about these amazing wee islands, the Gili Islands off Lombok (The island next to Bali). Explaning how remote and small they are is pretty hard. Lombok is a wee bit smaller than Bali, pretty tiny itself, these islands are tiny in relation to Lombok, on the biggest of the three it took us just over an hour and a half to walk right round it on one of the days! There isn't even any motorised transport - which was very nice after Kuta! They just use horse and carts of bicycles to get around!!
Really nice wee desert island for some relaxation, most days were just chilling at the beach or in some of the wee beach huts at our place. One of the days we had a snorkelling trip round the three islands, seen heaps of stuff - most of the normal shallow reef fish from diving, loads of cool coral and a sea snake, was quite excited about coming face to face with it! They can only bite the soft bits between your fingers or your earlobes so we kept them covered and escaped.
The island had a "cinema", a pub with projector so you got to watch new pirate films, good quality if you bought something. On the second time we went i got a chicken burger, eating it in the dark it seemed ok, not the greatest burger but ok. We get home..... oh no!!! Seriously ill all night, dont need to give you the details, but it wasnt pretty. Food poisoning, in the middle of nowhere,oh no! By tea time the next day i finally managed to eat something, felt weak and crap all day but was starting to feel a bit better once i found out united had beat aberdeen 2-1 and stopped spewing!
On the snorkelling trip we met some really nice belgian girls Sophie and Saskia, a spanish guy and some dutch people and all headed to the party at one of the dive centres, 80's themed and loads of Arak flowing( local rice wine) so a good time had by all. We ended up meeting up with the girls a few times for drinks and sunsets and met the spanish guy on the ferry home to Bali and he's now living close to us in Kuta, sorry still dont know his name!
While we were there we found out about the Bali bombers from 2002 gettin executed and that Kuta was now a very dangerous place, lovely since we were about to head back there, aarrgghh !
Our stay in Kuta on Bali didn't get off to the best of starts. On our first morning when we left our hotel I was crossing the road and got knocked down by a scooter that I didn't see coming. Nose was pouring with blood but luckily wasn't broken just a bit sore and bruised! Then within a couple of days Kerrin had his bank card stolen. Other than that we are having a great time!!
The place we are staying is awsome - room service breakfast and a big pool so we've been spending plenty time chilling around the pool! Kuta beach is really nice and very busy with surfers (something we've still got to try out) and the sunset over the water is really nice! Kuta itself is so busy with cars and motor bikes everywhere and so many people trying to sell you things!
We spent a day at Waterbom, the water park and had a great time (with plenty screams) on all of the flumes. One was called Boomerang - it started like a normal flume but then shot you up vertically so you thought that you might go over the edge and then you came hurtling down again backwards! VERY scary!
Another day was spent doing a tour of Bali. We saw a Barong and Kris Cultural dance; rice fields; a monkey forest where there were monkies EVERYWHERE including jumping onto people they thought had food; visited a stone carving village; and had an amazing view of Lake and Mount Batur - an active volcano. The last stop was at a spice plantation which at first seemed a bit boring but we got to see them making coffee and got a taste. Kerrin couldn't resist trying the most expensive coffee in the world made by feeding coffee beans to civets and waiting for them to come out the other end which makes the coffee a lot smoother! Apparently Peter Jones sells it in London for 50pound a cup!!
You might have noticed we were getting a bit hooked on scuba diving so another day was spent doing some dives at the ship wreck of the US Cargo ship, Liberty which the Japenese sunk during WW2. We could see for over 25m and was really cool to see some of th structure of the ship and swim amongst it and we saw plenty of big fish we hadn't seen before.
Sorry people, we have been getting lazy with these updates and partly due to being on tiny wee islands that you would be amazed if you got an internet connection on.
Anyway, we were in Singapore not so long ago staying with Lesley's uncle Colin in his swanky new apartment, we got there after a brush with customs due to me not realising you get hammered with tax for any alcohol in Singapore so the guy tried to charge me 30 quid for a tenner bottle of vodka, but we escaped by playing it stupid!
We had some amazing meals in singapore which we werent allowed to pay for (thank you very much Colin and Andrea). We checked out Raffles and chucked peanut shells on the floor, as you are supposed to. Went on the Singapore Flyer (like London Eye) and got a cracking view of the city and overlooking the F1 track. We had a walk along it and the pit lane, really cool seeing it, they were still dismantling stuff from the race they had when we were in KL. Had a day at Sentosa island and beach off singapore which is full of touristy rides and a pretty nice beach, pity it was full of indian sleazy men, since it was a public holiday, nice to see though (the beach, not the men). And needless to say with singapore we did even more shopping, got some more clothes in some of their 470 shopping mals they have, even Les was knackered from shopping!
Great to see Colin and Andrea again, thanks for having us. Popping in for another wee visit for the day after Bali before we head off to Oz.
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