The last day of our holiday is sadly here already and we're now relaxing before our flight home tonight. We had a great couple more days in Lombok after Christmas day, swimming in the sea, exploring nearby beaches and eating lots of food! We also saw some geckos fighting and had a couple of drinks whilst listening to a really great band doing a range of western and Indonesian songs. Their Kings of Leon and Led Zeppelin tributes were especially good!

We got the slow boat back to Bali (I got sunburnt despite it being really cloudy!) on 28th and we then got a minibus to Kuta. There were eight of us in six seats for the journey which was just over an hour so it was a little uncomfortable but not the worst journey ever! It was about 9pm by the time we got to Kuta and so it was full of Australians staggering from bar to bar. We found a room for the night after a lot of wondering around as everywhere was full or expensive. We then got some dinner and headed to bed as I wasn't feeling great...possibly sun or heatstroke.

We got up early yesterday and went for a stroll on the beach, unlike other westerners we saw who were all running along it! There was also a clean up operation going on from the night before. Adam bought a t-shirt from one of the many stalls offering "morning prices", we had breakfast, checked out and then flagged down a taxi. The taxi's all have meters and are very good but the one we got said it would be 50,000 rupiah before we left. We asked for it to be on the meter but he insisted it was the same price. We finally got our way and surprise surprise it was only 30,000 rupiah on the meter!

Our flight to Bangkok went smoothly. We had an interesting French guy next to us who now lives in Bali and all he kept going on about was how strange Thai women are, how they marry westerners for their money then divorce them and pointing out which of the air hostesses he thought were ladyboys! We nodded and agreed to shut him up!

We got to Adam's Dad's house to be greeted by security saluting us and Wanchai, the butler, scurrying over to welcome us back and carry our bags followed by one of the maids. Shortly after being shown to our room, Adam's brother Ryan, and his Dad came out and we sat and had my favourite homemade limeade and some cake! Zubeda (Adam's Dad's wife) came back from shopping and we enjoyed relaxing and chatting until it was time for dinner. We had wonderful lamb shank followed by sticky rice and fresh mango (luckily much nicer than the sticky rice we had with main courses in Laos!). We relaxed and enjoyed the peace and quiet here before getting to bed.

Today we went to the Grand Palace after breakfast with Ryan. We finally got in after one scammer tried to tell us foreigners couldn't go in until 1pm - we just went to a different gate and got in no problem! It's really impressive at the palace; it's a huge complex and has some very gold and very sparkly buildings. It also has some intricate and pretty porcelain covered monuments and buildings too. Our taxi on the way back took us all over the place which cost us about three times the amount it should have done but we got back in the end and had a delicious Lebanese meal followed by an assortment of fruit we had wanted to try. I'm not sure how you spell them but I'll give it a go! We had mangosteens, rambutans and durian fruit. The first two were delicious and really tasty but the durian fruit (known for its awful smell) was not as nice!

We have just been for a swim and are relaxing before dinner, when we're having a Thai feast. We'll then have to leave for the airport unfortunately.

It will be nice in some ways to be home and see our friends and family again but it's been really great out here and we'll be sad to leave.