Local Time

---

hello my lovely dedicated readers (aka mum and dad). hope you are all well and enjoying the sun i am sure is shining oh so brightly at home. i am currently in wales, and the sun does not seem so intent on shining here. it's odd sort of weather really - it has not yet rained, yet the sky is stuck in an endless sulk, content to remain grey and cloudy in a sure-fire attempt to suck the soul out of anyone not totally accustomed to shitty weather. haha. nah, it's not that bad, i'm getting used to it really. but last night joe and tom (some friends i met when they were backpacking around australia) decided to have a party in the backyard, which was about 2 degrees. i have to give them credit, british people seem intent on not letting the weather get them down. anyway, enough of bashing the weather - i'll let you know what i've been up to.

basically my last week in bali was pretty amazing. spent the whole time eating (something i have been doing pretty much constantly since i left aus), blissing out on local beautiful foods and drinks - bintang again! had a few lovely nights being persuaded to drink arak (a local spirit that everyone drinks as if it was water). i loved those nights. chilling out in a big circle cross legged with ten or more bali local boys (the girls were never allowed out, for fear of being shamed by their village). so we would all just sit around, and the one glass of arak would go around and around and around and around the circle, only ever stopping to be refilled by the designated 'bar tender' for the night. the clove cigarettes flowed freely -they are actually surprisingly nice!! and the music would never stop - amazing local tunes that had obviously been created for drinking nights such as these. when they started, the boys would immediately light up, their hands would start moving, and they would all sing in time. a cat empire version of hiphop is the only way i can possibly think of to describe their style. mellow yet excitable, and i guess it was more of a chant than singing. anyway it was a beautiful new experience for me to see how the locals kick it in bali.

on mine and mums last night in buitan, (mum was flying back to aus the next day) the boys came over bearing dinner. they had caught and cooked for us whole fish, as well as having cooked yellow rice and what i think is called black rice pudding,. an amazing mix of rice and coconut milk and all things blissful. we sat around in a circle and ate of banana leaves that they had also brought over for us to use. it was a beautiful way to end my stay in buitan, those boys were so lovely to me, they taught me a lot about how you don't have to have all the 'stuff', possessions, whatever, in life to be happy. you can just be. i wa thinking about it, in western terms those guys have nothing, they live in simple houses, eat rice three meals a day and have no solid job even to speak of. but it doesn't matter to them. they have their mates, they have their beliefs, and beyond that everything is immaterial. it's bautiful really.

so, we left buitan the next day and travelled about 2 hours to kuta, which i guess is classed as the tourist capital for bali. spent 2 days by myself absoulutely basking in the sun, trying to take in as much as i could before coming to the UK. on my final night, i met up with some girls i had met in my first few days in kuta, so went out with them clubbing at bounty & discoteque, some of the most popular hot spots in kuta. after having been in comparatively isolated spots for the past two weeks, it was a bit of a culture shock to be returning to a westernised and youthful party zone. lovely though. went a bit wild, drank a few amazing drinks by the name of 'blasters,' got pretty much completely wasted and danced the night away. ah, my last night! woke up the next morning feeling a little under the weather, wishing i hadn't had that last blaster, wondering what had possessed me. haha, ah well it was all in good fun, i had a mad last night with the girls. i don't think i'll ever forget us dancing in a metal cage in the middle of the dance floor, leaping for the bubbles that were flying across the sky. i totally remember wishing i was a bubble - haha don't know what they put in those drinks!! anyway, met some lovely lovely people that night, danced to some lovely lovely tunes. these are the days, hey?

flew out the next day to the UK, an ordeal that was definitely less than desirable. took about 24 hours all up, or about 30 hours if you count the absolute bullshit customs line i had to wait in. had a nine hour stopover in my not so beloved Kuala Lumpur, in which time i booked myself in to a freezing cold and totally sterile hotel room in the airport. had an interesting few hours sleep before jumping back on a plane for 12 hours to london. joe picked me up - oh how nice it was to see a familiar face. he took me back to wales, where i have been staying for the 3 or 4 days since then.

so, i'm giong to start a new blog for this new country, ciao for now lovelies, hope everything back home is beautiful and the flood waters have subsided somewhat,.

big love xx

---