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My time travelling Bali and the Gili Islands has been unforgettable. Spending just shy of month in a location renowned for its beautiful beaches in great company has without a doubt eased me in to the travelling lifestyle. I'm not going to give you a daily run through of the past month, instead more of an overall summary because quite frankly you would get bored (jealous) of hearing about my daily beach and beer routine.
On arrival in Bali for the first few hours I was apprehensive about whether I was going to enjoy it. I was immediately directed off the plane and on to a hot, dirty bus jammed full of people and forced to hold on to strangers as the bus swerved its way across the seemingly dangerous airport runway, avoiding various motorised vehicles by just inches. Having survived the bus journey I arrived at the airport building which resembled a shed and spent at least 30 minutes trying to find the correct conveyor belt for my luggage (there were no clear signs in the end I just followed a stranger I saw on the plane). Once I had finally reclaimed my baggage I headed straight towards the exit with a clear plan in my head, my lonely planet book had advised that I should head past the exit through the parking lot to the bluebird taxi stand in order to find the cheapest taxi. Following instruction I ignored the hundreds of taxi drivers encouraging me to get in there car and walked the entire car park, of course I could not find this taxi stand (I'm still not convinced it exists). Exasperated I walked back toward the airport exit to the thousands of taxi drivers I had seen previously. I took up the offer of the first man desperate to be on my way and we began the walk to his vehicle, again I found myself walking the length of the car park, after a while I became suspicious having walked past all of the cars and asked where his taxi was, he then pointed at his motorbike on the side of the road - yes this man genuinely expected me to ride on the back of his bike with an 80kg backpack!!! Of course I refused, repeated are you crazy numerous times and finally found a taxi driver to take me to my hostel safely (by safely I mean he only nearly ran over 3 pedestrians and made 2 emergency stops due to mopeds in the 10 minute journey across town). You will be happy to know I got to my hostel safely a mere 2 and a half hours after my flight had landed- you live and you learn- my first lesson; don't think you know it all just because you own a lonely planet book!! Luckily my time since then has been fairly smooth sailing but I though it may be fairly amusing (perhaps worrying) for you to picture me trying to get on a motorbike carrying a bag I can't even lift.
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