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Published: April 8th 2016
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Monday 21st March 2015 Still in the hospital in Lombok, we were woken at 5am when the nurse came charging into the room and turned on all the lights. It was time for Gemma's daily blood test and for some reason 5am each day seemed like the right time to do it. At 9am the consultant came in to give us the good news that Gemma's blood platelets were climbing and her blood pressure had dropped and we were free to leave that day - HURRAY!!!
As quickly as we could, we packed up our stuff, signed any papers that we had to and booked a flight to Bali for later that afternoon. We hopped in a taxi which drove us a short distance to the airport. We had a 4 hour wait for the flight which would only take us 25 minutes to fly to the neighboring island of Bali. When we arrived at Bali after one of the smoothest (yet shortest) flights we'd ever taken we jumped into a taxi and asked to be taken the 5 miles to our hotel in Seminyak. The taxi driver was useless and had real difficulty telling the difference between his
arse and his elbow ( i asked). He had no idea where we were staying despite Seminyak being one of the biggest areas in Bali for tourists, despite calling the hotel to ask for directions and despite me directing him using GPS. Finally though, we made it to our hotel 'D'Sri Saren' around 9pm and were in awe of the wonderful hotel room we'd booked. It wasn’t 5 star but it had a TV with English speaking movie channels, had a nice clean, big bathroom, swimming pool, room service and the most comfortable bed with pillows made of actual clouds. We were paying only £20 for the room and we worked out that this is the first time we have stayed in actual hotel since one night we had in China. We've stayed in many homestays, guesthouses, bungalows, hostels but hotels are a bit of a luxury to us. That night we ate at the restaurant in the hotel and watched a film before resting our head on the most comfortable pillows in the world.
Tuesday 22nd March – Saturday 26th March 2016 Over the next 5 days we slipped into a habit and fell into holiday mode
rather than the travelling mode we’ve been in for the past 7 months. This was partly down to the fact that we had to take things easy on account of Gemma still recovering from her dengue fever, but mostly because it was so easy to relax in Bali. Firstly, the hotel was very comfortable and other than eating out at a restaurant one night we had room service for the remainder of our stay as the food was cheap and very good quality. We really made the most of the TV in the room and watched movies whilst eating our room service most nights after spending tiring days on the beach. You might wonder how spending days on the beach can be tiring, but for us, or should I say me, they were tiring because I spent most of my time in the sea rather than on the sun loungers where Gemma occupied herself with a new book every day. As Bali is famous for surfing and having never tried myself I decided to give it a go. I started off with a body board which I hired from one of the hundreds of locals offering this rental service for
50,000 (approx £2.50). I started in the shallows where the waves were still quite strong, not to mention the drag of the waves heading back out to sea. I spent many hours tiring myself out skimming across the water being pushed by the waves, so much so I thought I’d badly sunburnt my belly, turns out it was friction burns. Occasionally Gemma would venture into the water to cool off but wasn’t energetic enough yet to be splashing around in the waves so quickly returned to her book. On our third day on the beach I paid £10 for an actual surfing lesson which included a 1-hour session with an instructor and 1 hour for myself. It was at this point that I realised you needed a considerable level of fitness to surf. Not only are you paddling around with just arm strength, you are then fighting against waves, pushing yourself up onto the board, falling off, climbing back on and falling off again and again. All in all, a very tiring but extremely fun thing to do.
The beach we visited most whilst in Seminyak was Double Six beach as it had everything we needed for our stay.
There was an abundance of restaurants, bars, sun loungers, water sport equipment and with this, approximately 1 hawker every 10 seconds trying to sell kites, sarongs, bracelets, fruit, beer, tattoos – you name it we had it offered to us. It wasn’t the most stunning beach we’ve seen but it had a strong breeze coming from the sea which cooled us down in the 32 degree heat and the water was a lovely temperature for cooling off too.
We didn’t spend all of our time on the beach though, we also enjoyed walking through the streets of Seminyak looking in the shops, which had more of an independent boutique look and feel to it rather than the sorts of market stall/shops you see in other parts of Asia selling the same tat to tourists. We had the feeling that most of the shops here were owned by westerners rather than locals and as such there was a higher price attached to most of the products, but equally there was much better choice and quality. Seminyak also had an abundance of independent coffee shops and we both love a café so spent most mornings trying out new cafes looking for
the perfect coffee.
Our hotel was a 20 minute walk from the beach and despite making that walk once, on our first day, we soon realised that you could pretty much get anywhere in Seminyak for no more than £2 per journey in a Blue Bird taxi, so after that discovery we were either sat on a sun lounger or in a taxi seat. When it was either too hot to be on the beach, or the rain clouds started to roll in, which they did a couple of times, we would then retire to the pool in our hotel, which we luckily always had to ourselves. It seemed that other than 3 other people we saw in our hotel; we were the only ones staying there.
Seminyak has a good party side to it, although not as much as nearby Kuta which we have read and told to keep away from as it has been likened to Magaluf. As Gemma was taking it easy and not allowed to drink alcohol until she finishes her medicines, we didn’t get to see this ourselves, but I suppose this means we have a good reason to return some other time.
In conclusion, we had a really good time in the beach area of Bali, which we weren’t too sure whether we would before we arrived. We had an impression that it would be very overpriced and very touristy and full of western people. It was actually all of these things, however in a positive way. I think this is down to the fact that we opted to stay in Seminyak which has an easy going vibe it and there are perhaps other area of Bali that would cater to an alternative feel. Bali is such a big island that we are unable to visit all of these other areas on this trip, but we are very happy that we opted to spend the first part of it in Seminyak.
For the remainder of our visa, which expires on 31
st March 2016, we have decided to head inland in Bali to a place called Ubud, which is more countryside that beach and that’s where we’ll post the next blog from.
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