Bye bye Bali

Hi all for the last time from Bali!

Yesterday after I posted, Claire, Reyann and I walked to the Bali Bombings memorial close to our hotel. On October 12, 2002 two bombs went off in Bali nightclubs and killed 202 people. Eighty eight of these people were Australians, and these people were either just working at a nightclub or travelling the world like myself. It gave me goosebumps reading all the names. I can only vaguely remember the event, and I remember as a ten year old being scared that it was exactly one day, one month and one year after September 11. It's pretty tragic how nowadays we have terrorist attacks happen every few weeks now, when in comparison there it was terrifying having them a year apart. 

Afterwards we walked up Legian Street, looked in some of the shops and eventually had dinner at a cafe Ryan had taken us to last week. The weather has changed a lot in the last few days. It's not as humid, but gosh it's got! I had a delicious Mie Goreng and a watermelon juice and a banana juice (I couldn't decide so had both!!). We we re all so full we felt sick but it was yummy!!

Slept quite well, poor Claire was in a room without an aircon but she came and hung out in our room for a bit so at least that was a bit of a cool break for her. This morning Reyann and I woke at 7 and packed up really quickly. After this we just had brekky, hung around with Claire and chatted. At 11am we headed to the airport and now here we are. Reyann has free access for her and a guest to the lounge so I'm currently living it in up luxury with her eating beautiful food and taking in my surroundings - it's amazing!

So here is my wrap. Indonesia is the 55th country I've been to. I've had a great time here and met some lovely people, but my gut feeling to never come here was kind of right. There were beautiful parts (eg rice terraces) but the beaches here overall are very disappointing. I would consider visiting other regions but Bali isn't my cup of tea overall. Australia tops everyone for beaches, nothing will ever quite compare to our pristine sands and the Great Barrier Reef. That's not to say I haven't had a good time, I just think there are lots of other places I would like to go to and I probably don't need to come back here. It's sold and marketed as some kind of paradise, but the reality is people hassling you all the time (especially if you're a solo female traveller), endless heat and humidity and lots of mess and rubbish about. Again - I promise I've had a good time! I just wouldn't rave about it. I'm looking forward to seeing my family and friends and enjoying a busy but exciting few days before work goes back next Tuesday. 

See you in China in July!!

Love to all

Claire

Xoxox 

Waterbom

Hey everyone,

Last night I read for a bit and by 9pm I was so tired I could hardly keep my eyes open. I went to sleep about 9.20pm and only woke when my alarm sounded at 7.45am. I must have been very tired! I reckon I could have kept on sleeping too. 

I went and had some breakfast (banana pancake - delicious!) and then set off on the 20 minute walk to Waterbom, a waterpark here that claims to be #1 in Asia and #2 in the world. Every person I know that's been to Bali told me I had to come here! 

I can see why - I had so much fun! I arrived at 9am when the park opened to avoid queues. I was so glad I did this as for the first two hours I didn't have to queue at all. Something hilarious happened at the first ride, the man came running up to me "excuse me miss! You can only ride this if more than 45kg!" I laughed and told him he flattered me but that I weighed a bit over 45kg so I would be OK!!

The next five hours were spent going on lots of rides. Ones where the floor dropped out and you went straight down, twisty ones, racing ones using mats and more. My favourite were the smash down (the floor drop one), the twin racers (very steep and fast due to the mat) and the boomerang, which had a huge drop and propelled you up a nearly vertical wall. 

I reckon overall I probably had 40 slides! At 11am the queues started to form and most rides had a 15-20 minute wait. The only problem I ran into other than this was that one ride had to be 2-4 people. I befriended a family of three from Manchester and I went with them! The staff were super friendly but kept asking me "where your friends?" "where your partner?" and were very surprised when I said was by myself. The Boomerang worked lots better with two people as well, so that time I approached a family from Melbourne and went on with their daughter. 

Even though signs everywhere said no outside food or drink I somehow got in with mine, so all I had to buy was an ice cream which was delicious. The lockers they had there were awesome so I just kept going to and from that in between the slides and making sure I drank lots of water. 

Apart from the slides there was also a pool, a kids play area and a lazy river ride that had a current that slowly took you all around the park. I think all up I probably did about five laps of that! It was very relaxing. 

Towards the end of the day I went on my favourite few rides for the last time. When queueing for the twin racers a very scared 9 year old girl from Perth was with her brother and sister. She reminded me of me as a kid, pretty much in tears saying she didn't want to go on. I joined in with her siblings and told her every lie under the sun to get her onto that ride ("no, it's not steep at all", "I've been on it six times and it's really slow"). After promising her a high five at the bottom I waited with her brother. After a very long minute (during which I can imagine the guy at the top trying to convince her to go on while she freaked out!) down she came. She got her promised high five and then said "YOU ALL LIED - it was fast! ....can we go on again?" Cured!

I left the park at about 2.30 because the queues were even longer by this point and my glutes and shoulder blades were pretty sore by this point. I walked back and enjoyed walking through the chilled out laneways on the way back to the hotel. They are a stark contrast to the "hello miss! Transport? Taxi?" and crazy motorbike traffic of the more major roads. 

Claire and Reyann have just arrived at our hotel. I think soon we are going to head out and see the Bali Bombings memorial and then grab some dinner. Tonight is my last night here and I will post tomorrow at some point before I head home. 

Love to all

Claire

Xoxox

PS: Ryan uploaded some group shots so I've included them in today's post too!

Back to Kuta

Hello all,

After I wrote yesterday afternoon, Julia brought me a booklet that had some interesting info about the Gilis. 'Gili' means 'small island' and 'Trawangan' is derived from the Indonesian word for tunnels. This is because during WWII the Japanese occupied Gili T and forced the locals into labour. They also dug a series of tunnels underneath the island that have since been filled in.  There were a few words of advice regarding customs we hadn't know of as well!

I read lots of my book and then met the group for our final dinner together. The location was great, a table right on the beach with romantic lanterns, and even some fireworks at the conclusion of our meal. However the service wasn't very good, Leah ended up going to the bar herself and grabbing the bottle of wine that her, Michelle and Julia were sharing - haha!

We went back to Jiggy's and I spent most of the night in the outside area facing the beach with Greg, Manuel and Claire chatting about life, travel and the stars. Greg had this awesome app which is a map of the solar system, so we could tell which planets and constellations we were looking at. 

We headed back to the hotel at about midnight for a pool party, but I wasn't feeling it. I couldn't be bothered getting wet and needing to shower again, as well as getting my bathers wet. So I went to sleep. I slept horribly due to heat and noise, but never mind. I'll catch up on sleep before work goes back next week. 

This morning I had breakfast with Claire and then packed up. Claire moved into my room with Reyann as they are both staying an extra day at Gili T, but I'll be seeing both Reyann and Claire tomorrow at the hotel I've booked in Kuta. 

When Claire was packing up her room she checked her drawer and found a travel journal documenting the travels of a girl named Helena from the UK. It had six months worth of stuff in it, we had a little bit of a read trying to figure out where she was and how long ago she had been on Gili T to see if we could reunite her with it. Thanks to some detective work and the wonders of modern technology, we deduced that she had left Gili only a few days ago after a Wanderlands tour and Claire found her on Facebook. She messaged her and received a swift response thanking her, it was obvious straight away she had really missed the book. Leah and Michelle are going to leave it at reception in Kuta at the hotel we are staying at because Helena will be going there next week. How lucky for her!! She sounded quite similar to myself a few years back. On one page in her book the book had a section asking why she was travelling, and she said a long term boyfriend that had "broken her heart and freed her to travel" she then proceeded to use some expletives to describe how he had cheated on her. It's interesting how something seemingly negative at the time can happen, but it can turn out to be a wonderful thing. All thanks to that moron ex boyfriend of hers, she's now on a six+ month journey learning loads about herself, her capabilities and other cultures. It really struck a cord with me due to the fact that I started travelling alone after a particularly disastrous and frustrating trip to France, Spain and Portugal with a lazy ex boyfriend followed by a messy breakup resulted in me realising that until I found the right person for me, I should go it alone and not let not having someone to travel with stop me. I'm so pleased she will be able to continue writing in it once she receives it next week. What a feel good story - hopefully her cheating ex is stuck in the rain at home in a boring job hating his life ;)

I said goodbye to those still at the hotel and boarded the ferry with Ryan, Julia, Jan and Dominik. Unfortunately we stopped at Gili Meno, Gili Air and Lombok so an extra hour was added to our journey. I did see a dolphin jump out of the water thought which was pretty cool!! Eventually we made it to Padangbai and all got on our appropriate shuttles - myself, Jan and Dominik to Kuta and Ryan and Julia to Seminyak. 

Unfortunately for us, the shuttle had no air conditioning. So it was a very long two hour ride in the van with the windows down, inhaling exhaust fumes and goodness knows what else!! All part of the experience I guess. I got chatting to a guy from New Zealand and his Norwegian girlfriend who were really nice and that helped to pass the time. We stopped at a petrol station and they had individual servers who got the petrol for you which was interesting! I think it used to be like that at home a long time ago. The traffic and driving was pretty scary though. Overtaking on blind corners, running red lights. I'm looking forward to driving myself again!

I got back to Kuta and was so hot and exhausted. The five minute walk to my hotel made me quickly sweat through my clothes (ew - sorry). I'm fairly sure this was the hottest day we've had here yet, my weather app said 31 today and not much cloud. I got to the hotel only to find out I had somehow booked a room without an air conditioner. Luckily for me they had one spare room with an air con. The guy told me it would be an extra 100,000 ($10) a night but I bargained him down to $7 as he told me if it rains part of the wall leaks a tiny bit. The weather forecast is clear the next two days though so all good ;) The air con is beautiful and my room is an ice box. 

For a while I just sat and regained my energy. Then I unpacked a little and set off. I walked to a shopping centre called 'Beach Walk' which was very uncharacteristic of the area. It had Zara, H&M and a massive proper supermarket (that was why I went there). I stocked up on cash at the ATM and bought some snacks and water for the waterpark tomorrow. Then I stopped at a small restaurant up the road where I enjoyed some Mie Goreng and watermelon juice for just $4 total!!

I walked along the beach on the way home, mainly to avoid all the annoying taxi, bracelet and sunglasses people. I'm much more of an easy target now I'm alone. They're annoying me already! I'm walking because I want to - I DON'T WANT A TAXI!!! Haha. The sunset was obscured by some clouds again but once again the light was beautiful. The beach was packed, much more than a few days ago. A Malaysian lady asked me for a photo which was weird and funny at the same time. So now I'll be in her photo album somewhere!!

I came back to the hotel and had a quick swim. The pool is really nice!! Unfortunately my sinuses are really sore from my cold though so it was short lived. I've just had an amazing shower and am having a really early night in bed reading my book and maybe watching a movie. Unwinding at its finest! :)

Love to all

Claire

Xoxox

Boat trip...with turtles!

Hi everyone!

Last night we went to the local street market for dinner. I had a delicious mix of vegetarian options and three skewers (chicken, beef and prawn). The market had a really vibrant atmosphere with vendors calling out trying to sell their products, and lots of smells wafting around the place. Apparently it just pops up at night then disappears later on. 

We went out for a few drinks after that at a place called Jiggy's. They had good music so we had a bit of a dance and then headed back. As I mentioned yesterday, this part of Indonesia is mostly Muslim. However, it's very leniently Muslim compared to middle eastern countries, as alcohol is served everywhere, there are people every few metres trying to sell drugs, and people walk around in bikinis all the time. But at 5.07am when I was woken up by the wailings of the call to prayer, Gili felt very Muslim to me! It must have been loud because I even heard it through my earplugs. Annoying but just one of those things I guess! Luckily I managed to go back to sleep. 

I had eggs benedict for breakfast and we met our boat trip at 10am. Ryan told us on the trip that the reason there is so much rubbish and rubble here is because last November they decided they didn't want shops and bars right near the water anymore so they demolished them all. They clearly didn't think this through very well though because none of the debris were cleaned up and now there are random ruins of bricks, tiles etc scattered about. Apparently 2/3 of the bars here were lost. 

The boat trip was great. Once again we were treated to some ripper weather when it was meant to be miserable. We went snorkelling three times. The first time we saw lots of fish and a ship wreck which was pretty cool!! Being Australian and having been to the Great Barrier Reef though, no other snorkelling experience ever really compares. But it was good all the same and as I was about to find out, we were in for a treat at the next stop...

I had heard people mention there are many turtles around the Gilis, but obviously like anything else there is no guarantee you'll see any. Our guide set off snorkelling and we followed him. First we could see four of them very faintly on the ocean floor but very far away. Then we saw another one which I followed for a while, but again it was in the distance. All of a sudden I could see a group of tourists clustered together with their faces down, so we swam over there and it was totally worth it. There was a turtle just a couple of metres below us eating the greenery between the coral. It was so active!! I hung around for ages and then it even came up to take a breath. I was honestly 30cm away from it which was amazing. I then realised though that I didn't know any of the people around me, and I was glad of this too because they all started surrounding the turtle, one girl touched it and it swam away. Idiots! I looked up and could see the group shouting and waving from our boat and it turned out they were waiting for me - oops!! But I was really glad I had stayed. 

We went for lunch on Gili Air, the third of the Gili Islands (the other two being Gili T and Gili Meno). It was much more chilled out and quiet than Gili T. Claire and I went for a bit of a walk and we could see mountainous Lombok in the distance. Then it was back on the boat for one last snorkel. The sky started to go quite dark and we headed back to Gili T. 

Now I'm about to have a shower and read my book before we head out for dinner and some drinks later on. Tonight is the last night of our tour. While most people are staying on here, myself and my guide Ryan will be on the 11am boat back to Padangbai tomorrow. I'll then be taking a bus to Kuta for my final two nights there. I've had a really great time with the group enjoying lots of different activities, but I am really excited for the waterpark on Tuesday as well and a bit of chilled out solo time before I head home :)

Love to all

Claire

Xoxox