I haven't done a blog in ages because I've been lazy but there's a lot to catch up on. We are currently in Penang in Malaysia but I will write a seperate blog about that. The past two weeks have been spent in Bali & Penang. The night before we came to Bali we went to festival Asia this was Malaysia's version of V festival with 50,000 locals attending, we assumed there would be some tourists there but how wrong were we. Not a single one which meant every 5 minutes we were stopped for photos and if people saw someone taking our photo it would encourage others to ask so they were forming queues, the only problem was I didn't think of charging £5 a picture.
As it is a Muslim country there was a tiny bar where you could buy alcohol but you have to remain in the area you couldn't mix with the others to consume it and there was a sign behind the bar saying 'we do not encourage drinking if you choose to do so you face the risk in the afterlife' i took the risk. With this in mind I assumed the night would be quite tame - I couldn't have been more mistaken. Every single person was on a substance way stronger than alcohol, this was so strange to see 49,998 people in a zombie like state many lead on the floor & 2 of us who had just had half a Heineken. One man came upto to us and kindly pointed out to us 'we all on the powder you not on the powder' so we headed back to the safe place for the evening - the bar. It was an amazing night though and I know all festivals have their fair share of drugs I'm not singling out this festival there's obviously just different rules over here, even if the fear of the death sentence for selling drugs does not put you off.
The first three days in Bali we spent at a place called ego village in the jungle in the mountains, now I'm not really a jungle person and having to share my bathroom with a millipede was not my idea of fun. But I soon got over it. The taxi driver who brought us here was called Mr Cheng & I asked if he'd ever been on holiday and he said 'no what's the point I tried it once everywhere looks the same I just like to drive' I didn't tell him I was dedicating a year of my life to travelling what's the point - Blackpool looks the same as Bali in his eyes. True to his word I looked at the pedometer on his car
and it had done 393,000 miles I can only assume that he came out the womb with it. I thought at one point I was going to have to walk behind the vehicle holding it's exhaust in place.
On the first day in Bali we went to a waterfall which was amazing I opted for a proper English bikini whereas everyone else seemed to be in waterproof shorts and vests but not to worry. I didn't realise how windy it would be but none the less I ploughed in. It was the coldest thing ever and the current made it impossible to get right upto it. It was beautiful and so so surreal and I went as close as I could but the combination of the temperature and the waterfall took your breath away in every form, you had to walk backwards to be able to breathe. I felt like Michael Jackson moonwalking.
The currency is Indonesian rupiahs and the exchange rate is £1 - 20,000 rupiahs so i am officially a millionaire here. The feeling is short lived when you have to pay 10,000 for a drink. Everyone here carried everything on their heads literally rice, washing, cars. The tiniest woman ever greeted us when we arrived and flung our suitcase on her head like all id packed was marshmallows. They have the best posture I've ever seen though I mean models in England would pay for a posture like there's, but now I know the solution don't worry about your hair plonk everything on your head. Also bingo wings haven't even been heard of I'm convinced it's the way forward.
The only issue I've had so far is I can't pronounce their nationality I keep calling the Bolognese as in spaghetti. Apparently it's Balinese. Tomato tomarto.
We had an issue one night in which I woke up at 3 am to the sound of something slithering round the bed, as snakes including cobras are common here i was not going to take any chances and woke Sarah. After about 3 minutes of not breathing we heard it again and this time we were certain it had just slithered around the bed so we ran to the bathroom and locked ourselves in. As you can imagine our life is flashing before our eyes. I could see the daily mail head line flashing in my head 'conservatives consumed by cobra' we eventually got our phone lights on and peered around the door and slowly and I mean it took us thirty minutes managed to check around the room in every area for this cobra. After finding nothing still an hour later and we hadn't heard it since we went back to bed with all the lights on, at this point it was 5am. At 7 am when the same noise happened again followed by the flushing of the toilet we realised someone had moved in the bungalow above us. The two hour ordeal took 10 years off my life all for nothing.
The following four days were spent recovering from the stress on a little island called lembongan, here there were the most idyllic secluded beaches I have ever seen. I probably said the exact same aboutThailand but this overstepped the mark, we were the only people on the beach. The only transport here were motorbikes, my middle name being Houdini meant that obviously I was going to be designated driver, two trees later I finally figured which way you turn the throttle to brake. The island was 4km long so it allowed us to completely explore the place. The only issue we had was we accidentally walked into a temple and I thought I was going to be castrated but we quickly moved along.
As you drove around there were mango, banana and coconut trees so it was like supermarket sweep and we took advantage of it. Although the highest cause of death on the island was being hit on the head by a coconut - no one seemed phased anyhow. I asked a local about the crime on the island and he informed me that yes crime does occur as sometimes chickens get stolen. I apologised as he seemed quite upset, giving him my condolences but delved deeper asking if there was every anything serious. He looked at me quite unamused and it was then as if a light bulb had switched on in his head - 'ah yes this one time many years ago' it was here when I paced myself for the news of a mass homocide 'a cow was stolen'. That put the icing on the cake really.
We had a little hut on stilts for our time on the beach, compared to our hut in Thailand it was like paradise as it had an insect net and hot water. The only surprise was as we looked around our room and opened the bathroom door we were shocked to be greeted by stairs which took us to our bathroom outside. As you can imagine every time I went to the toilet in the night it was like a scene off crime watch with a head torch and a stick to make sure I came back in one piece.
We had to get a boat back to the mainland to catch our flight home and I was expecting a nice leisurely ride like something you'd experience on Stanley park. The driver looked like Chris brown and I imagine if Chris brown was a boat driver he'd do it like this guy aswell. Half way through he stopped and had a walk around and in his eyes waves were a ramp, bare in mind it was a small speed boat where every bump was felt. We passed a group of dolphins on the way which was amazing to see but Chris brown decided to get his video camera out and make an hour long documentary on them before remembering he was driving a boat. We did get their safely in the end and the only downfall was all my ribs had crushed into one.
