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Bali
I arrived at about 2pm from Singapore and found myself surprised at the fact that the airport was really big and modern! I had the idea that Bali would be more like Sri Lanka! Unfortunately that was as good as it got for the airport as the cue for passport control was massive! I waited over an hour before being let in, luckily it gave me sometime to find a hostel.
I decided to stay at Kunar hostel, again a very nice hostel with a great swimming pool and the people seemed really nice! I was invited out to dinner with them that night!
We headed to a tiny backstreet restaurant called Smile cafe.
I had the best chicken curry there.. Well up to Indian curry standards!
After we headed over to Sky Garden which unbelievable, offered free drinks and free entrance between 9-10 every night! I hadn't been drinking anything that day as I still felt the hangover from the pub crawl the night before but I couldn't resist a free cocktail!
The next 3 days were very similar, swim and relax by the pool and party at night! I met some amazing people in that hostel including a Finnish guy who was 51, he had been sailing around the world for the last 4 years! He had been a CEO of a large oil and gas company! Another interesting night was when a German girl turned up to the hostel, once again the same plan as the first night, Smile and then Sky garden and onwards from there. We all had a great night up until we went to bed.
I woke with a dull thud I will never forget! She had fallen from the top bunk to the hard floor below probable about 2 meters! I jumped out of bed and went to work! She had cut her knee badly so I asked for a first aid kit at the front desk but they had nothing so I ended up running about trying to find something to patch her up.
The following morning it was like a blur and didn't seem real.. It was certainly really for her.. Her knee had doubled in size!
I had another Gadventure tour booked for Bali and on the 17th I made my way over to our starting hotel.
We were staying at a beautiful hotel, and once again it was amazing to be able to have a privet room and my own space. When I was checking in I bumped into Tamara from Thailand which was nice, so I joined her and her tour group for lunch and a catch up!
I was getting use to these tours now. This is my 3rd Gadventure tour but it's a little different to the other tours as this one is a "classic" and not a "YOLO" tour. I didn't know when I booked it but these classic tours are for all ages. 6pm once again we met in the restaurant for introductions and a tour overview, we had a really nice small tour guide called Ron who was Indonesian. The rest of the tour were made up of a mixture of young people like me but also a couple in there 60s and everything In between.
The first stop on our tour the next morning was a thermal pool! Warmed by volcanic activity the pool Is very warm like a bath but it was very yellow and dirty! Still it was a nice start to the trip and if was a good way to get to know everyone!
That afternoon we explored the Ulun Danu temple complex which was built in the 17th century in the middle of a lake dedicated to the gods of the lakes. It was an impressive temple but mainly because of the mountains and lake it has as a back ground.
It's amazing how different the Hindu temples here in Bali are from the rest of Asia, much more Simple but still impressive. Most of the temples are made out of volcanic lava rock making them nearly black in colour.
Out hotel for the night was this amazing hotel in Munduk, the views were spectacular. It was sat right in the middle of a Vally and the views were more than amazing!
we had the afternoon of to do what we wanted so Mitchel my Dutch room mate and I decided to rent mopeds out for the afternoon. It cost us only 30k for 4 hours which works out at about £1.50! We twisted and turned down the through the mountains until we arrived on the beach at the bottom. We sat and watched the sunset over rice fields and the ocean a great afternoon out!!
I have learnt a few skills on this trip so far and one would be that I know now most of the drinking games you can know so I spent the night teaching some of the tour group! A stick insect came down to join in at one point, really amazing creatures and another good night making new friends!
We left our hotel early for a hike to a nearby waterfall we passed through lush tropical jungle, rice fields and our guide pointed out some plants on the way such a Coffey beans and chills all growing wild. We passed a spiders web with a massive Spider watching us, it wasn't like the tarantula in Thailand, much thinner and evil looking!
When we made it to the waterfall it was very impressive but unfortunately unlike other waterfalls I had been too you couldn't swim in it!
We visited a "bubbling spring with magical powers" after which had been ofcourse made into another temple with plenty of locals selling... Beer inside...it was clearly a very spiritual place.
One of the more unexpected stops of the day was to visit a blanthi village and coffee plantation.
We had a look at the various types of tea and and other fruit they grow but by far one of the most interesting had been trying some of the luwark coffee that had been famous when I worked at Premiair! We would always talk about how good could it be? Well I have had some now... And it was well... Coffee... If you don't know what luwark is it us a special type of coffee been which is fed to a group of cats which is then collected as poo, cleaned and then made into coffee. A unique experience and another very strange thing I have eatendrunk! We arrived mid afternoon at kintamani which sits at nearly 1300 meters above sea level on the edge of a creater looking over lake Batu. The main reason for heading here was to make an early morning climb up the active Mount Batu so It was an early night for most on the tour including me!
The volcano hike was so amazing I decided to write a separate entry on it!
That afternoon, after the hike we headed to the Besakih temple complex, the main temple in Bali... So fingers crossed in impressed.
I wasn't impressed but the good news was that it would most likely be the last temple I would visit on my round the world tour. The next destination would be Ubad which is the cultural centre of the island and we would have 2 nights here. The hotel was beautiful, surrounded by rainforest with monkeys swinging around above us!
We didn't really do much for the next 2 days, just have a little party and relax some more before heading out to candidasa which was a long drive down through the mountains back to the coast!
The hotel here was even more amazing than the previous hotels we had been in.
The hotel was right on the sea front with an infinity pool with a bar in the middle! This is living! We had all signed up to go snorkelling the next morning at the "blue lagoon" which we had to pay more for, but the reef turned out to be more dead than anything! I think we still had a good time swimming about. We headed for the beautiful sandy beach not to far from ours and had a great afternoon there swimming and I even had a back massage!
The last meal for the group had once again sprang up on us so we headed for a place opposite the hotel which was in the theme of a jungle bar.
They had a live band on that night who were fairly good and myself and Ariet managed to work our way through most of the cocktail list!!
I headed back the next morning with Ariet and Mitchell to Kuta where I had started my Bali trip. I had 2 days left so we all went out and partied and enjoyed ourselves, one night we headed out early to catch a world of the world famous midget boxing! Some people might think that this is wrong but they were all happy and even had a beer together after the fight! Amazing!
In going to miss Asia for so many reasons but I am looking forward to heading to my next stop... Australia!!
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