Bali and Singapore

12.03.2008 29 °C

First stop in Bali was Kuta, which we soon found out is the Aussie equivalent of Benidorm - lots of sunburnt noses and really, really cheap booze! We'd booked a 'swanky' hotel before we arrived which for us is pretty organised - 6 quid all in and it had a great swimming pool ... needless to say we spent a couple of days soaking up the sun before deciding there must be more to Bali than Irish bars and drunk Australians?!

We headed on over to Ubud, a bit further inland and home to Monkey Forest - a creepy temple complex sporting lots of Macaque monkeys that are way too eager to relieve you of any loose possessions. Obviously, the bag of bananas were dumped on Rich and he spent the rest of the afternoon with a couple of monkeys hanging off his t-shirt!

Monkey see, monkey do

Think it's taking a closer look at my very white legs - still no tan, how?!

Took a sunset trip to see the old sea temple at Tanah Lot built on a huge offshore rock but the battery on the camera died so, as per usual, we missed a great photo opp!

Balinese temple

A couple of days on the beach was in order so we headed over to the Gili Islands just off the coast of Lombok, a four hour ferry ride from Bali. Definitely my favourite islands so far, great snorkelling and nightlife but without huge numbers of tourists. We met someone who had planned on staying 3 days but had been there 4 weeks and was no closer to moving on - to be honest, I think we'd still be there if we didn't have the flight to Singapore booked!

We decided that we should remember to take the camera out more as the only time we do is on trips - we absolutely loved the Gili Islands and managed to take, erm, one photo .... in five days.

Gili Trawangan, sunset over Lombok

A short flight and we were in Singapore, not quite the hustle and bustle of Indonesia but a kind of Asia for beginners. We spent a week there and managed to catch Chinese New Year which was cool!

Clarke Quay, good for a pricey beer!