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Hi all
(Now that I can get around a bit more I am catching up on my entries, about 2 weeks behind at the moment.)
So after 2 very pleasant flights (Cathay Pacific is the best airline I have flown with yet – good food and the wine just kept coming and it was only a 2 hour flight!), Bangkok to Singapore (again) and then Singapore to Denpasar, Bali. I arrived and headed for Kuta Beach. It was about 11pm ish and after I had checked into Kedin’s Inn and had a shower I was ready for the England game. There is a sports bar here that would be any football fan’s dream. They show all the games, so if there are 3 on at the same time on Saturday they have each one on a different screen so you can see all the action. The bar is also 24 hours and has cheap beer and cool staff (they let you buy your own wine from the shop and they will open it, keep it in the fridge and serve it to you all night!). Anyway, so we stayed up to watch the game and as usual we were disappointed so we decided to raise our spirits and went to a club called the Bounty and had fish bowls. After that the obvious option being to have a swim in the lovely hotel pool till about 5am.
The next day I just chilled round the pool at my hotel, ate some food, watched a film and played cards. I took an immediate liking to Bali, not many travelers would probably back me up, but personally I prefer it to Thailand, or at least what I saw of Thailand. Think I’ll have to try Thailand again some time in the near future. I find Bali friendlier, the hotels are nicer and cheaper, the bars and restaurants are better. It is quite quiet but then that’s to be expected.
Day 3 I decided to enroll in some surfing lessons. I booked with a company called Wave Riders who said that the lesson would be at 2pm, they check the tides and waves and so on to pick the best conditions. I sunbathed on Kuta Beach for a while, which is gorgeous and full of fit bodied surfers and then went to buy my first pair of ‘boardies’. I got a very fetching pair of (real) Roxy boardies for about a tenner, all the surf gear – Roxy, Billabong, Quicksilver is so cheap here even for the real stuff so I will be stocking up before Oz. At 2pm I met Frankie my instructor for the day, after he ran through the basics off we went into the sea. It was basically straight into it, as I find out later a lot of important instruction is missed out and they seem to work on the practice that if you get hurt, you will remember not to do it that way next time! You paddle out towards the waves, which is actually really hard work. I found it hard at first to just stay on the board before a wave even came near me! You then turn round on the board and when the wave comes you paddle for a bit then have to go from being lay flat to standing in one smooth motion. Yeah right! After trying to do this for about 1 hour I have full respect for surfers cos it is one of the hardest things I have ever tried to do. After about 2 hours I was standing up – but not for long. I came out of the sea, legs covered in scratches and feeling like I had been in the spin cycle of a washing machine for the last 2 hours – I thought it was supposed to be fun? Exhausted I agreed with my instructor to come back at 10am the next day for the next installment of “Julie’s interpretation of a surfer dudette!”
I woke up the next day aching more than the after effects of any body pump class at the gym! No wonder all those surfers have six packs – girls mental note – surfer dudes are the future, no girl should be without one! Anyway back to my next lesson, I had a different teacher, can’t remember his name but he had the funniest accent as he is Indonesian but has spent a lot of time in Oz so he has a mix of the two. He was a much better instructor and soon I was standing up and what us surfer types call ‘riding the wave!’ So I really enjoyed that session and actually felt like I was getting somewhere, but with my cockiness came a very bruised and cut knee so I called it a day and decided to have my last lesson later on in the week as we had already planned to go the Gilli Islands the next day (Sunday).Feeling triumphant we celebrated with a curry and beer night, one of the best Tikka Masalla’s I’ve tasted – but I’m yet to find one that even comes close to a Mistry’s on Curryoke night!
So off to the Gilli Islands the next day, that’s a 6am get up then L and I thought I was on holiday!…………..
Lots of love
Julie x x x
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