Week 32 and 33 Bali and Gili Islands

Week 32 to 33

Good bye Jordan. Hello Indonesia!

We landed in Denpasar, Bali, at 6pm - we paid $25 each for our 30 day visa and then immediately took a taxi to our hotel which was in Seminyak. We met 2 of our friends at the hotel - they had flown out to see us from the UK. After almost 8 months travelling it was emotional to see friendly faces.

We stayed in Seminyak for 2 nights. Seminyak is a trendy beach town located only 30 minutes from the airport - it has lots of nice restaurants, bars and shops.

Loved the pool

Our first night was spent gossipping over a few beers and catching up on stories from the UK. The following day we chilled out at the beach and watched the sun go down while eating our first Indonesian dish of Nasi Goreng.

The neighbouring town called Kuta is where the party is, almost every night of the week. So on our second night, after a few drinkies at the hotel, we grabbed a taxi and headed down to party central.  We had a lot of fun bar hopping and finished off the night dancing away at the Sky Gardens.

We left Seminyak with massive hangovers the following day and made our way to Ubud located in the middle of Bali via taxi (350 Rup). We stayed at the very lovely Tungun Mas Bungalows for 3 nights. Ubud is a really nice town to visit with lots of shops, restaurants and temples everywhere - a true Bali feel to it. We had a great time here and made the most of our short stay in the area.

During our 3 days we visited:

The Monkey Sanctuary in Ubud where the monkeys were going wild for bananas and tourists.

Spot the monkey

Took a road trip to the Jatiluwih UNESCO rice Paddies which were beautiful and well worth the 2 hour trip.

This is what rice looks like!

Sampled the rarest drink in the world  - cat poo coffee!  Also know as Luwak coffee. In the place we visited, they collected the coffee beans from the wild so no caged animals apart from the couple that were on display for visitors.

Sleeping Civit

Lunched at the beautifull Mount Batur volcano - a beautiful volcano located within a larger volcano crater.

Had lovely massages - very relaxing!

Went to a Balinese Fire dance at one of the local temples - it was a scary experience - especially at the end when a man on a horse started kicking hot coals at us - as if it wasn't hot enough!

Our next destination were the Gili Islands! These are beautiful little islands located just off Lombok. Getting there was an easy 4 hour boat and bus ride from and to our hotel,s all organised by a tour operator in Ubud (250 Rup each). Our first Island stop was Gilli Trawangen which is the busiest of the 3 islands and more of a 'party' place.

Early morning boat ride to Gili T

Walking to our hotel

We stayed at Coconut Dream Bungalows and spent most of our days relaxing on the beach and watching the most beautiful sunsets while drinking copious amounts of Bintang!

Eating fish at the local night market

The second island we visited was called Gili Air ('air' in Indonesian means water?!?), a short 20 min boat ride away.  We all preferred this island as it was a lot calmer and more relaxed than Gili T. It was also smaller than Gili T - you could walk around the whole island it in less than 1 hour!

There are no cars on the Gili islands so the only way to get about is by horse and cart. As Youpy bungalows, which is where we were staying, was on the other side of the island to the harbour, we got 2 horse and carts. I loved it! One of our friends didn't - I thought he was going to tip the cart over.

Hahahahahaha!

Where we stayed

Again we mostly enjoyed relaxing in the sun and eating and drinking during the evening. Roland and I snorkeled on one of the days and spotted an array of pretty fishes.

We were lucky to experience a full moon party on one of the nights and danced away with the locals and other tourists, bare footed on the sandy beach. Weirdly we met other British people who were from our area in London! Small world!

The following day after the full moon party, our friends left us on Gili Air to make their way back home to the UK. We decided to stay a little longer and then make our way to Lombok ...  It didn't quite work out that way!

Roland received a call from one of our friends who had just arrived back in Bali stating that we had her passport and she had his! OMG! Couldn't believe it! What are we going to do? 

Well there was really no other choice but to make our way back to Bali as soon as possible to meet our friends before they were due to fly out the following day! Stressful!!!!! We woke up super early the following morning to catch the early boat. The passport exchange was completed by midday and in time for our friends to catch their flight home. Relief all round!

As we both liked Bali we decided to stay here for another 3 nights at the Sun Island Hotel in Kuta. We mainly relaxed on the beach or at the hotel's pools. The highlight for me was pampering myself at the hotel's spa. Bliss!