Checking in at KL was slightly more…. strenuous than planned. Unfortunately for some unknown reason when we went to check in the man said both tickets were in the name of James Nash. Quite a problem. Directed us to where it could be fixed. It couldn’t be fixed and we had to buy a whole new ticket at full price. Not ideal.
We arrived at Bali the airport and some porters hassled us to get money off us. Not best first impression. Then we got the taxi to into town as we didn’t have anywhere booked but had a idea of where we wanted to go, taxi driver was rude, I wasn’t impressed, if we were in Nottingham he wouldn’t of got away with it! So anyway he dropped us off at the very edge of the centre and we still had a long walk to go… A very long walk with very heavy bags in a very hot Bali. James checked out the first place on our list. He wasn’t impressed. We then headed to the next place and got caught in a torrential downpour that lasted some time!! Ended up somewhere over priced but relatively clean and would do the 1 night we were there (another bad lonely planet recommendation, we are writing a list!!) had a quite night in with hot fuzz, chocolate and a large bottle of cold water! (it was actually really nice!)
The next day the sun was shining and we got our free breakfast, left our bags at reception and headed down to Kuta beach! It’s an amazingly long beach, with great waves, and again, really reminded me of bantam, minus the rocks, but exactly the same kind of waves! It was a great beach but would have to admit it didn’t live up to our expectations, it had quite a bit of rubbish along the main strip and was really nice, but lacked that special quality long empty beaches poses. Still we had a good day on the beach, sweltered under the heat, and headed back to pick up our bags and a taxi to Surun? Don’t think that’s right… Anyway the journey just didn’t sit right and when we got to the road we were going to look for hostels on…. it was… long…. and empty..… and very sparse..…. We didn’t find the place we were looking for in the book but were happy to just find somewhere to stay and not just be dumped on the roadside with miles walk either direction to a house! We settled into our room, the room without a sink! Was clean so we were happy! And went next door to a great surf bar and had a drink and a great bit of chocolate cake!! It had a great atmosphere, good music, covered in pictures of the owner Cacho surfing everywhere and surf boards, and a great menu with a bit of personality! Something was still niggling at me though and the place we stayed was called Penang Penang accommodation and so looking through the book I found somewhere called Penang Penang and thought what are the chances of somewhere called Penang Penang accommodation not being in Penang Penang!! Turned out 0!! We were in Penang Penang! Which happened to be a great area of the coast for beaches and surfing!! So the next day we went and explored our unexpected location and were very happy with the results! We sunbathed all day and some kind of religious ceremony took place on the beach right next to us. We were really looking forward to a good dinner at the place we had drinks at the previous night but it was closed! gutted! So we ate where we had breakfast, which I forgot to mention had excellent pineapple pancakes, not as good as Koh Pagn Nahn but definitely the best since! Dinner was average but it did the job!
The last day we spent ages debating what to do/where to go, James wanted to see somewhere diff, but money etc, we ended up staying put which we both turned out to be really really happy with at the end of an excellent day. We went on the hunt for one of the beaches further up the coastline, to achieve this we melted. But was worth it, when we got down to the beach the coastline was absolutely stunning..… We couldn’t get in the sea to cool off due to the rocks so we just decided to walk back along it. It was definitely one of those moments when mike would have said, oh its just over the next hill, we always thought it’d be round the next rock but it turned out we’d walked further than we’d thought and the road went straight and the cliff line didn’t! We had amazing weather and had a great afternoon exploring. We stopped a few bays short of the beach right by us and went in the sea and chilled out till sunset. Just past the bunch we saw loads of monkeys in their natural habitat (1 picking a bottle of water up with both ‘hands’) it was amazing! So naturally got close and took pictures! Until one got very angry and was moments away from jumping and attacking one of us. Lesson, stay a safe distance away from the monkeys. Its not worth the picture lol Had a great day and on our way back saw our restaurant was open, whoo! Washed, got a taxi to an ATM and back as had run out of money! (wasn’t expecting to stay somewhere so quite loll) and then ate, YUM! there was a fat loud american man in there that night! Not impressed haha Had great evening and I finished The Host, book number….5
We made the most of our last day and got up early to go to the beach for a couple of hours before checking out. We had 16000 left, which was enough for one large bottle of water and a porridge lol we were absolutely gasping as hadnt had any water the night before and so this food had to last us till the airport, james wasn’t impressed!! We survived though on our rations for the day and made it to the airport incident free……
The best of pictures can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/itsbeenemotional/sets/72157622871470326/
One Comment