Beautiful Bali

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13.01.06~We left Ubud tihis morning nice and early or so we thought-the shuttle bus decided to turn up at nearly 8!! We were really annoyed as we'd missed our free breaky and it was gonna be a long day!
We were the only ones on the bus, and arrived at the ferry point about an hour later..luckily we had a little bit of time to kill so we managed to grab some jaffles (jaffles we discovered are the same as our toasted sandwiches but they do them with banana which tastes really good).
The ferry was disgusting and smelt really bad of wee, we sat upstairs so the air blowing through helped to diguise the smell! We spotted a couple of backpackers and took a seat near them. We got chatting and found out they were from Canada..the ferry ride ended up taking 5 very long hours so it was good to have some company!
Once we arrived at the other end we had to get another shuttle bus to the next port-Bengsal...which i'd read about in the lonely planet..it wasn't supposed to be a very nice place, so we had no idea what to expect. We kinda thought we could handle it as hassle & hanggling was all we'd done for the last 4 months.
Anyway it turned out that Sara & Trent (the Canadians) were with the same company so we were all on the same bus which made the thought of Bangsal less scary! Also on the bus was another girl who we'd noticed on the ferry, she was English and travelling alone, so we got talking to her too and pretty much all stuck together from then on!
When the bus stopped we literally got hounded by men...there was about 20 of them grabbing at us and our bags..we all felt really threatened, it was horrible!
By the time we'd walked down to the small 'long boat' we'd be told that everyone there had got Malaria and that we were all going to get it...all a load of rubbish of course just to get us to by their overpriced mozzie nets as apparently there are none on the islands!
Once we finally got to Gilli Air~the smallest of the Gillis~we all checked into a cute little place called Kira Kira bungalows...oh and surprise surprise they all are fitted with mozzie nets!
We were all starving after all that so we headed out to find somewhere to eat...we soon realised we were the only tourists on the island and managed to find the only restaurant there too...we had to wait 3 hrs for the food, as they were completely un prepared for guests as you can imagine. It was a good chance to get to know everyone else better though and we spent the rest of the night doing that over a few vinos!

18.01.06~well after all that trouble getting to the Gillis it ended up raining nearly the whole time we were there, so we found a cosy little Irish bar which served great food while we watched loads of movies..perfect! We all left together so no one had to face Bengsal alone, and headed back to Pandang Bai.
We spent a couple of days in Pandang Bai, and on one of them we took a short walk to Blue Lagoon Beach and all hired some equipment and did some snorkelling! It took Sara a few attempts to brave the water but when we were all in the coral was amazing and so colourful!

19.01.06~Trent, Sara & Hannah all got picked up this morning as they all had flights to catch. Was really sad as we'd all got really close over the last week or so, but we've all promised to keep in touch and hopefully visit!

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