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Our next stop was Ubud, home to Eat, Pray, Love. Following the rustic nature of Lombok, this was quite a shock to the senses. The streets were lined with so many restaurants and boutiques. We set up camp in a lovely little hotel for the next week, taking in all the sights Ubud had to offer.
One day we decided to visit the local monkey forest, and what cheeky little monkeys they really were. We had bought bananas beforehand to take in with us, and after walking no more than 5 metres into the forest, they were all over Tom trying to get hold of the bananas. He threw them one by one away from him to stop them climbing up his legs and back. That was the end of our bananas but we could still enjoy the perils of the other tourists as we watched them being 'attacked' by the monkeys for their bananas or anything else they may be holding (glasses, hand sanitizer, they weren't fussy). On this little adventure we found the winner of the 'idiot of the year' award, a man who decided this was the time to pop open his tin of pringles - chaos ensued....
Having been a while since we'd done any cooking, we decided to venture to a local restaurant for a cooking class. This would involve a trip to the local market and then learning how to make a variety of local dishes which you then have for lunch. We'd expected the class to be at least 10 people, as it was on the day we booked. But low and behold we arrived and it was just Tom and I in the class. He tried hard to be teacher's pet but apparently his chopping wasn't up to scratch and I was asked to take over.
With no sea breeze in Ubud, the blistering heat was a lot harder to deal with. We'd often just go into shops when we were out if we thought they looked air-conditioned, which made the appeal of white water rafting impossible to resist. Two hours of navigating the fierce current was enough to give us our adrenalin rush. Tom and I were at the front of our 6-man raft, which meant we were the ones that had to hang on for dear life when we bounced over the rapids and rocks. The other people in our raft were not exactly experienced rafters and all turned up in loads of jewellery and nice clothes. Whenever we got close to some choppy water the girl in the group just pulled her oar in and screamed – very helpful. Helen got some revenge by falling onto the girl when we smacked into a rock.
Through our week in Ubud we took a visit to the botanical gardens as well as taking in a local dance show, both of which were unsuccessful for different reasons. We soon made up for it though with a relaxing reflexology session. We also happened upon an animal shelter which had the most adorable three week old puppies in it. One particularly cute puppy called Ninja stole our hearts and I think if Tom could have taken him home instead of me, there would have been no contest!
We decided to head back to one of the beach areas of Bali for the last 3 nights of our trip to soak up some final rays. We arrived at the homestay we'd booked and it seemed nice enough. We got into our room and I noticed a massive cockroach in the bathroom. We then found a couple of small ones in the bedroom so the staff came in and sprayed the room. We decided to move rooms to one that doesn't have a semi-outdoor bathroom and off we go to the beach. We get back to our new room after the beach and there are lots of ants by the entrance. The staff, who don't speak much English, start spraying them with Glade (not realising it is air freshener and not bug spray). We then make our number of rooms in one day a hat-trick when the bathroom door won't open so we have to move again.
After the hassle of this Tom could see I was after a nice place to end the trip on so we splashed out on a luxury hotel on the beach. Even though it was 3 times the price of the other accommodation, our 4* luxury didn't disappoint. The hotel had 3 swimming pools, one of which had a waterfall and a cave in it (Tom's 2 favourite things). To top it all off our 'honeymoon' trick, as taught by Jack and Caitlin, finally paid off. We had fruit, chocolate cake and robes put in our room on our last night. What a lovely end to our stay.
This is our last blog entry as we have now sadly come to the end of our 3 month excursion. We have travelled across 8 countries and driven 1550 miles across California and Nevada. We have had an amazing trip, the time flew by (helped by alcohol) and met some really nice people as well as seeing sights and places that we will never forget.
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