Bounty hunting in Bali

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So the journey back to Bangkok all went smoothly and we were chowing down on pad Thai again in no time at all. Early start for us at 3am to get over to Bali!
We started off our time here in a place called Balangan, which is on the southern most tip of Bali and is also surfers paradise. We wasted no time in walking down to the beach to enjoy sunset and a few beers whilst watching/admiring the surfers- purely for the skill of course!!
Back at the room Jo was convinced she saw a frog behind the wardrobe- not believing her at first, I carried on with my business. Then came the ribbit-ribbit noise from the wardrobe. We managed to Usher our slimy friend outside before turning in For the night. A few minuets later we heard ribbit-ribbit.......ribbit-ribbit! I told Jo she was imagining it and made her go to sleep. In the morning no word of a lie, there it was another frog camping out In the room! 'Do you believe me now??' Jo despaired.
Because our place was a little out of the way from other things, we decided to hire a moped the next day to get about. After a little warm up ride, Jo was ready to rumble with me on the back! Things were going fine until the road disappeared and we were on a dirt track- I got air clearance several times. We arrived at dreamland beach, but unfortunately it didn't look much like dreamland as it was windy and overcast. Back on the moped again we headed off to blue point- another beach to watch the surfers for a few hours. We chatted and drank beers whilst this time actually admiring the skills in huge huge waves! Jo has studied Balinese dance at university and in particular a thing called Kechak. As it happened, there was a temple along the coast line that did a daily performance at sunset, so we decided it would be rude not to go and see it. The temple was set in the cliff side of the island and was pretty spectacular as you would expect. The amphitheatre was set facing the sea and the sun was perfectly poised in the background as the performance began. We luckily got good seats up the top to see everything, but the place was heaving. You couldn't have got any more people in there if you tried! The performance itself was amazing and the costumes were just out of this world. A definite must if you ever visit. Back on the moped we headed back home. All was going great until the sat nav sent us left down what can only be described as a gravel dirt hill - and that's being quite complementary. I'm going to be honest, Jo lost her shit and I ended up walking down the track until I found paved road again. We did eventually get back home unscathed and in one piece, but Jo did require a large glass of wine to calm down!
The next day we were off again to Kuta. It was Saturday night so it would be rude not to celebrate the birthday girl!!! We headed to a place called sky garden where we filled our boots with all you can eat food and all you can drink drinks for the princely sum of £5 each from 5-9pm!! By the end of it we were well oiled and decided to show the locals how the dancing is done. We eventually rolled home about 1pm. Jo had had such a good night she decided to jump in the pool and sing happy birthday to herself to end it!
No rest for the wicked- we were in the move again the next day to Ubud. We popped into the monkey forest for a few photos and to explore. There was hundreds of them and whilst they looked cute- you know they would easily take a large bite out of you!
The thing about Bali is, things are quite spread out and public transport doesn't exist, so to get anywhere you need a moped. We hired one again from the man at our hotel to explore the famous rice terraces and water temple near by. Jo wasn't really looking forward to it but valiantly agreed to go again. The journey out to the rice terraces was a long one. Riding the moped is fine on long straight,made up roads without traffic. It's hill starts, traffic and unmade roads which are the problem. A lot of the time the roads are also very narrow. I'm telling you this so you can gain some perspective in what will be forever known as 'bad moped-gate day'
As I said the drive out to the rice fields was long- we hit traffic in the town and both skinned our legs on the side of the bike trying to dodge the traffic, so we're both already tetchy. Things got worse after an hour on the bike, where to avoid hitting a lorry we instead hit a pot hole. Two seconds later- we had a blow out on the back tyre. We were in the middle of nowhere, not being able to speak a word of Indonesian between us, fed up and now flat tyre'd! We walked down the road and international hand signalled 'flat tyre- need new one!' Eventually we got directed into this compound type place where a group of men were sat around. The sight of us automatically sparked interest and made them all chuckle. Believe it or not we did manage to get a new tyre very easily from a lovely lovely chap for £2.30!!! Bargain in my book! I was so relieved I could have kissed him- in fact it took all my will power not to! Back on the road again for a short while and we arrived at the rice terraces. We were both exhausted by the time we got there. The day only gets worse though, somewhere between the mechanic and the rice terraces we lost the key to the moped! How I hear you say?? How can a bike still run without a key?? Well this bike can!!! Not knowing whether to laugh or cry we got a beer! Took some photos of the actually quite lovely rice terraces and discussed what we were going to do! Basically we were screwed! We had signed a waiver that if the bike was lost/stolen/damaged etc we would have to pay him $200usd. So after much deliberation we decided first off to search for the key on the way back (the impossible task of finding a needle in a haystack). As you probably guessed, we didn't find it. Seeing as the mechanic had been so lovely we decided to head back to him to see if he could help us. Again we were met by bemused faces and a lot of laughing. He did actually manage to find a key to turn in the ignition. The only problem was it didn't open the petrol cap. Only a slight problem, as we were desperately low on fuel!! Still he managed to show us how to open it without a key. We were in the clear if the man who gave us the bike didn't check this part of the key function in its return. Problem kind of averted we headed off to the water temple to cool off. As we were driving through lovely rice fields and beautiful scenery we stopped to take some photos. It was here that our third bit of bad luck struck- Jo's flip flop broke beyond repair. Again in the middle of no where, with no shop around we despaired! I ended up giving her my flip flops and rode shot gun with just one on. Thankfully when we got to the temple you didn't need shoes. For a short while we forgot about our moped troubles and enjoyed another fab temple. We were even lucky enough to witness a hindu festival and another type of Balinese culture called Gamalan. This made Jo's day and was quite a spectacle to behold. It was time to get back on the moped again and head home. We got back and literally threw the key and bike at the man, before scurrying back to our room. We thought we had got away with it and then came the 'hello.....excuse me, hello' BUSTED!!! Long story short we had a bit of a ding dong about the key falling out, replaced key, he needed to replace whole bike now etc and finally agreed to give him £15 in the end before Jo was about to murder him!!
That settled we needed to get her some more shoes and we both needed a stiff drink. We both vowed never to get on a moped ever again! We were done.
Thankfully we were off to Gili T the next day- a complete contrast. Nothing but relaxation from here on out. Our room was right on the beach, so it would have been rude not to spend the rest of the day on it enjoying the sun. That evening we sat on our balcony with a beer, enjoying the live band/karaoke. We enjoyed it not for the music, but for the pure entertainment of listening to this guy sing, who sounded like a hamster in a washing machine! By the end of it our ears were bleeding. Knackered it was early to bed for us, plus it was Jo's birthday tomorrow!!! I had managed to get her a few little gifts but had a cake plan for the morning.
5am came and we were abruptly awoken by what can only be described as a child wailing down a megaphone in our room. After about 2 mins of trying to get our bearings and figure out what the hell was going on, we realised it was the call to prayer from the mosque- which was quite literally next door! How we didn't see this I will never know. It continued to be our 5am alarm clock for the next few days!
When we finally awoke at a reasonable hour we enjoyed breakfast and a cake of donuts on our balcony for Jo's birthday. The day continued with a welcomed massage (courtesy of Andrea at home) for Jo's birthday. It turned out to be quite the birthday treat for Jo as the woman paid particular attention to her chest!! Next on the agenda was find a turtle to swim with. We didn't have to look for long or far. We had two encounters and it really was the icing on the cake, between beers and cocktails on the beach. That evening we had a lovely dinner on the beach and the hotel managed to get the whole restaurant to sing happy birthday as they brought out Jo a pancake cake compete with candles! All in all I think the birthday girl had a good day.
Celebrations continued the next day on a snorkelling trip, as we explored the other Gili islands and more turtles!
Bags packed it was back to Bali for the night before we head off to India. After careful consideration we decided not to go traditional Indonesian for our last meal- but rather an all out fatty burger. The reasoning- well we won't have beef for quite a while in India!! Now full of beefy goodness, we will catch you all in India!! Lots of love Lauren and Jo

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