Blogs from Padangbai, Bali, Indonesia, Asia - page 4

I'm in Padangbai now, which is a port to Lombok island. I would like to go to Gili Islands, which are right next to Lombok. It is renowned over here, very popular among the backpackers, all the people talk also about the magic mushrooms that you can get there. There is no police on those island, it seems that the government turns blind eye over it. But I go there for snorkelling of course ! I did snorkelling in Lovina. You have to hire a boat, a fisherman, to take you some 1+ km offshore to the coral reef. Beautiful. It was the very first time I did snorkelling. It is as if you were in a big aquarium full with tropical fishes - and they are all around you. Getting off from the boat on ... read more

Back in Padangbai! Love this place.... good dives sites and great local friends. We have been diving again with our local friend Tuncas. We are leaving on the 6th for KL Malaysia and will figure things out from there. Hope to be able to post pictures again soon.... read more

Hello again! Still in Padangbai, will be our fifth night here tonight. We were going to move on this morning but Ben had a rather funny tummy last night (see title) and is not very well(headache fever, the lot!). Therefore we are staying here for another night and hoping it all goes away! If not we will go to Kuta tomorrow and go see a doc... I'm a bit worried cos I'm getting a little bit of a tummy ache too:S:S Neverthemind, we were warned this would probably happen! We've had a nice time here, we've been to the beach 3 days in a row and both got a little bit burnt but you should see my tan now! wowser!! There are two nice beaches here, one which is great for snorkelling (saw some wicked coral ... read more

Ubud For the next part of our trip Marc and I pulled ourselves from the coastline and headed into the center toward the cultural capital of the island, Ubud - a great town full of beautiful architecture, some swanky stores and topnotch cuisine, a huge outdoor market, surrounded by beautiful jungles. Ubud is famous for its art galleries and traditional Balinesian dances at night. Upon arrival via private taxi, we settled into a cute guest house, which for the life of me can't remember the name. It was a beautiful with little bungalows scattered in between the lush greenery of the locale. After, we set out to explore the market. I found some incredible silver jewelry and refined my bargaining skills whilst shopping for some wood serving spoons. After some shopping (Marc loves to shop like ... read more

Everything that New Zealand & Australia were, Bali is not. Bali is not large. Bali is not sparsely populated. Bali is not populated by English-speaking, English-eating backpackers. Bali is not into toilet paper, trashcans, or milk in tea. At the same time, it is entrancing purely because it is not those things. We were assaulted our first night by scenes of complete mayhem in the streets of Kuta. Protected in the hotel's chariot, a giant black SUV with tinted windows, we watched wide-eyed as we wound our way back to the hotel. Along the way we battled for right-of-way with pedestrians, dogs, chickens, a zillion motorbikes, other vehicles, and the uncountable roadside stalls which threatened to overtake the "road" completely. We needed several days of poolside & beachside languishing to recover from the experience. We moved ... read more