Kuta Lombok 12/09 - 17/09

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To save money we got a 6 hour train from Erwin's home town to Surabaya and stayed over for one night in a hostel ready for our flight the next day. The hostel was great for us, cheap and private. Small cabins for 2 or 1 people were arranged in dorms with blackout blinds and storage for all our massive bags. They even had free breakfast, however, this was totally ruined by a crazy lady in a wedding dress, full makeup and a tiara (it was not her wedding day) attempting to convince us to give her asylum in England and wanting to book the same flight as us home!

Surabaya airport was not one of the most official places we have flown from, rules were pretty relaxed here. You actually wait outside the terminal on the surrounding pavements until your flight is leaving within an hour and then quickly rush through checking bags and "airport security" before jumping straight on the plane. The flight was easy and at the other end taxi negotiations were not as stressful as usual and we soon arrived at Honeybee Homestay. The people running the place were super friendly and brought us tea and coffee and let us get settled into our room. Before long, bars serving beer once again were calling us and soon enough we ended up in a surfers bar on the beach making up for lost pub time in Batang! We spent the night trading riddles with one of the bar staff and then were joined by an Ozzie lad who spoke in rap. He was a classic hippie traveller with all the philosophical talk of the world but after some time we realised his "opinions" were often opposing the previously rapped ones. For example: "I love and respect all religions, no religion is wrong but there is only one real religion and that's the universe, we are all following the universes religion and meditation is the only thing I follow, I love meditating but I don't really do it much." WTF?! Still, he kept us entertained for a few hours.

Our first full day in Kuta was started with free banana pancakes from the Homestay, we then borrowed a motorbike and headed out in search of the beaches. The first beach we came across was huge and absolutely stunning. White white sand and coral with turquoise clear waters, and we were the only people there!! We went paddling in the water and then lay on the beach reading our books, some little girls came over and we bought bracelets off them, they were adorable, couldn't resist! We then moved onto the next beach along. This beach was busier but had restaurants and sunloungers. We settled down once again and spent the rest of the day in and out of the sea and gobbling delicious food from the restaurant. Heaven.

The next morning we had already decided we would be extending our stay for a few more nights. An omlette and pancake later we were on the bike heading in the opposite direction, on a more mountainous path towards what we hoped was another great beach. We were not disappointed! We slapped on the much needed sun cream and spent the whole day there. A little lad tried to sell a coconut to Jack (several times) but failed. We had a few relocations for shade and food but that was the extent of our "busy day". That night we saw a flier outside of our room so headed to the spot for a few Bintangs. When we were there we met a French guy called Andrea. We weren't really sure at first but he turned out to be a great and hilarious addition to the night! We went to a few bars with him and which ended up with us chatting and "chilling" sat on a boat on the beach looking at the stars.

The next few days were pretty much more of the above. One place we saw coming home from the beach one day was a yoga meditation/retreat centre. It had the most unreal view of Kuta the mountains and the cliffs from their cafe so we had a couple of coffee shakes and took in the view. (Maybe a beer too).

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