Well, we had a fabulous time in Bali and would recommend it to anyone. When we arrived, there was a bit of confusion as to what we were supposed to do, but went figured out, in the end, that we had to queue to buy a visa to enter Bali, and then queue again to go through passport control which took forever!! When we had eventually made it through and got our bags, we then had to go through a further security checkpoint and put all our bags through a scanner!!

When we eventually made it out of the airport doors, we were met by a scene of total disorganised chaos! The best way to describe it is to imagine the very front row of a concert, all squeezed against the rails. Well, this is what it looked like, but the people were just those waiting to meet passengers, holding up name cards! Madness!

Then, we noticed how hot it was. Within 2 minutes, I was sweating like in a sauna! (I know, fat bloke!)

We eventually found a cab and $3 and 5 minutes later were at the hotel. We were surprised, to say the least, to be met by guards armed with semi automatic rifles, who did an under car bomb search and checked us out before we were to proceed!! (there are armed guards marshaling entry and exit points and all guests carry ID cards) this is a direct result of the bombings several years ago. At least we felt safe in the hotel!!

We were very surprised by the hotel itself. It was only a Holiday Inn, but with a Balanise twist. It was very well presented and the staff were SO polite and efficient. We were greeted with a cold face towel and a bowl of cold jelly, whilst we were checked in. Bloody nice touch. The room was good, not great, but modern, cool and good. The only annoying thing was, right outside our room was a decorative pond, and for the last 2 nights all we could here were bloody frogs all effing night! At one point, I climbed in and threw stones at the feckers!! Noisy bastards!!

Frogs aside, it was a great hotel with nice pool and swim up bar. Once we were settled in, we sat down on the front, in oversized wicker sofas, overlooking the beach and sea. We then proceeded to get quite pissed and silly, watching the lovely sunset and sampling the local brew "Bintang", which was rather nice!

We managed to make it up for breakfast the next morning and spent the day doing a mix of shopping in the local mall, which was a 15 minute walk up the beach, and parking about by the pool.

The following day, we booked a tour, doing several activities. First of which was snorkeling of the coast, which was ok, but because there were 20 other boatloads there, the water was a bit churned up and not as clear as it could have been, but still saw plenty of tropical fish. Next up was Turtle park, which is as it says, sort of! It is a small landing beach where they keep lots of turtles, some huge buggers as well, 4-5 foot long, as well as snakes, lizards, and monkeys! Got to hold my first snake, a big python, and, I must admit, it felt weird and I won't do it again in a hurry!! Even Ju had a go as well, bless her!

We then had a bite to eat then off for a 2 hour spa session, which included full body massage, scrub, foot bath, floral bath. I was so relaxed, I kept falling asleep!! Bloody lovely though!!

After our rub down, we then went on a small tour of the south of the island, encompassing a bloody great statute of some Hindu gods and a lovely cove beach called dreamland, which you could only reach by climbing down some steps carved through the rocks! We declined a swim, seeing as were all nice and fresh from the spa and then headed off to the clifftop temple at Uluwatau.

When we got there, our driver, Cherro, advised us to remove all of our jewellery, hats and glasses, as the monkeys that live in the temple love to grab things of people, which we saw first hand! We saw several hats nabbed, some glasses, they even tried to take the flip flops of someones feet!!

The temple itself was beautiful. Perched high on top of the cliffs and lots of nooks and crannies, but by God, was it hot!! After all that pampering and spa, it was all gone as I was again sweating more than the proverbial fat man in a pie shop!! We stopped off for a cool coconut water then back to the hotel for a cold shower and an early night!

The next day, we had a lie in and a lazy morning by the pool, until after lunch, as we were doing a shortened temple tour in the afternoon taking in 2 of the bigger temples. Silly me, fell asleep on a floating board in the pool for 30 mins and crisped my back! I did not feel it until that evening, but i was proper English Lobster!

Anyway, we set off on our temple tour, but got bogged down in Traffic! It took us 40 minutes to do 200m at one point!
I must take a side step here to talk about the traffic in Bali-It is Fecking Bonkers!!!!!!

There seems to be no sense of highway code! If you want to overtake, you do- Regardless of what is coming in the other direction! Even Undertaking is done with scary ease, and it does not matter who has right of way, as if someone wants to turn or cross the road in front of you, they will just do it!! BUT the worst thing is, MY GOD, the bloody bikes and scooters!! I have NEVER seen soooo bloody bikes and scooters on the road! If you imagine ALL of the bikes and scooters you have ever seen, ever, in your whole entire life, and then multiply by 1000, you are still not close to the number of scooters that there are on the roads in Bali!! And they literally have NO road sense or sense of danger at all, whatsoever!! I mean, it is not uncommon to see 3 people on a moped, Father, Mother AND BABY! Yep, thats right, a freaking baby!! Mum and Dad are ok with helmets on, not all the time, but baby? NO! Un-fecking-believable!! And then, there are the mopeds bombing round with 10-12 year old kids driving them! With 3 or 4 people on board! And seriously, they do not care about other traffic! They will pull out in front of you whenever and wherever they want! ALSO, there are the mopeds that really should be trucks, as they are soooo overloaded, they are wider and higher than a car!! Just Stupidly so! (oh and i forgot to say that, everywhere, by the side of the road, are people selling petrol-out of empty vodka bottles!!)

Anyway, Rant over, back to the trip.

We eventually made it to the first temple, and It was worth the trip, Cant remember what it was called, but it was bloody lovely, with lots of different tall and short stacks and immaculately kept gardens, surrounded by a moat. We could not stay too long there as we were trying to get to Tanah Lot Temple for Sunset, and were still a way away.

we managed to get there in time, (bonkers driving!) and on the way to the Temple, the streets are just full of market shops selling all kinds of tourist tut, but fascinating to wonder round!

The temple itself is another great spectacle. Built on a big rock that is separated from the cliffs, only by about 30 metres, and is easily accessible at low tide, (it was high tide, boo). There were other buildings on the cliff leading up to it, and it stretched even over to the next 2 bits of headland that were 5 mins and 10 mins walk away. We stayed to watch the sunset, but left as soon as it became apparent that it was getting too cloudy to see a good one, and that the clouds were actually storm clouds! Made it back to the car in time before the Heavens opened and the lightning came down!

Our last stop was to a beautiful restaurant that was on the beach. All the tables were on the beach and the food was in fish tanks in the restaurant or in the, fresh from that afternoons fish market, ice boxes. (I had chicken!) All was going great, until, just before our food arrived, it pissed it down again! So we legged it indoors and eat the dinner watching the rain belting down on the beach. Another good day, apart from, that night was the first night of the sodding frog chorus!

Because we had bugger all sleep, we had another lazy final day, in the shops, and by the pool, and Ju got her hair and nails done, AGAIN! And I stayed undercover, as i was still frazzled from the sun the day before!

Had a nice final meal in a local restaurant, and a meander along the main street back to the hotel, before finally calling it a night after packing at about 11, only to be kept awake by sodding Kermit & his friends again!

We were up at 0530 for our 8am flight back to KL and made it ok, both slept the 3 hours on the plane and for 3 of the 4 hours in the car travelling form KL airport to Lumut, ready for our next stop, which is the truly amazing and fantastic Pangkor Laut Island resort, which I will tell you all about in my next blog, whenever I get round to it!

Thanks for reading my version of War & Peace, and I will try to make my next one a lot shorter!!

Bye for now!

G & J