Bali Jaunt

I’m currently in zombie mode, clutching to the last bits of my holiday while slowly embracing the fact I’ll be back at work in t-minus 48 hours. But before then here’s the run down on my five-day jaunt with my best friend Kristie, to arguably the number one island of Indonesia’s 18,307 islands, Bali.

Our plan, or mainly mine was to simply relax by the pool, read the four books I had brought and be holiday smoochs. However, plans are only a guidance system right, what happened was a lot more.

 

Kristie set her alarm every morning. I’m not a morning person. This was not cool. But I’m a good person and was out of bed by nine each morning to grab brekky at the hotel. We stayed at the Ananta Hotel, Legian. I would definitely recommend it! Great staff. Nice mix of clientele, not only families or Aussies, but a great international mix. It made for some fun people watching in the mornings. To top the hotel off were the Tsunami warning signs, indicating to run up the stairs in cases of tsunami. Only in Bali.

The days saw us bartering with locals making a fair few enemies and limiting our friendships, to lying topless while being straddled by a back rubbing masseuses, falling into rice paddies and racing around the crazy streets on our little scooter.

A day trip out of the Denpasar region to Ubud, watching six-year olds stand up in ute trays speeding along the highway, drinking lewak poo coffee -- the coffee beans are actually from the animals excrement-- on the top of rice paddy mountains is unbeatable. However, not being a coffee drinker I couldn't appreciate it fully. Especially when I added a small glassful of cocoa and a sachet of sugar to it. I felt like I was committing the biggest sin.

Our day trip also included popping into silver jewellers to watch them create masterpieces in the middle of a bamboo house. I helped support the local economy by purchasing a small set of earrings for myself. 

Viewing, what I think, were greater pieces of art than in the Louvre in a local persons house. The colour, thickness and use of multiple medias was awe-inspiring some of the acrylics were five-centimetres thick. Our security guard guide explained that some of the art would take up to one year to complete as the drying process for each layer could take two months. Please note the photos below are a result of teamwork, Kristie distracting while I take a quick snap.  Spies in the making!
 
We visited the Ubud Monkey Forest, where I quickly divested myself of my water bottle as this seemed to be prime monkey bait. Cue the photo below.

There are those moments in one’s life where you know better than someone else. I had one of those moments at the Ubud market place. I saw this Chinese lady, ecstatic about her purchase of some harem pants. I asked her how much she got them for. She proudly replied, "a bargain $180 000IDR".

Oh sweet lord. I looked at Kristie, her eyes exploded, this was overkill. But this lady was so proud of herself and, well, why burst her bubble when she was more than willing to let go of her hard earned money so readily. So I said, “Awesome price.” And kept on walking, but in truth, she’d just paid three times their worth.

The Indonesian people are very friendly in general, they teach their children from the start how to harass serve foreigners. Today it was a pleasure. We had three little girls- all called 'Maddy' offer to be our tour guides through  rice paddy hills for $10 000 $1AUD each.  A tough bargain! We countered with $5000 IDR, roughly $0.50 AUD each.

That was the best $1.50 I have ever spent. The girls were such characters trying to show us where to go, leading the charge up hills and muddy paths that, well, are quite dangerous. 

Another fabulous change that has occurred in Bali’s continual growth is the new Beachwalk shopping centre. This has a Zara, Topshop, Victoria Secret and many other UK shops. But oh what bliss, we don't have these shops in Western Australia yet, so I went a bit wild. We also went wild at the Game Arcade we found on the top level, going crazy with shooting games, basketball shots, dancing comps and best of all the $1.60 photobooths!

   

 

I can hardly cover everything else that went on, but one thing worth mentioning was the He She show we saw at the beach Shack on Garlic Lane. My hats of the guy girls, that’s crazy stuff! We saw a Nicky Minaj, Pink and an Indian snake dancer amongst others. 

The funniest moment was being simply me being impatient on the moped, or as I like to call it “Channelling my inner Balinese”.  I drove the moped up on the footpath and almost ran over a group of tourists. They were fine! I yelled, “Excuse me, excuse me!” And we passed a dozen cars. The best thing was Kristie got it all on video. 

We had night out, visiting some of the local town hotspots worth mentioning are the Bounty and its foam party and Sky Garden. Fun was had! We had these three girls, two Malaysian and one Mongolian who joined us, they were crazy except the Mongolian, she kept bowing and placing to her hands together to apologize for her friends behaviour. Nothing wrong in having a little fun!

Well, who can complain? Morning massages, yummy food on every corner and a shining sun.



You just have to remember to drink only bottled water, drive fast, go to legitimate money changers and always halve the asking price, then halve it again and offer that as your first bid in dealing with the stall holders. 

Photo credit to Kristie for many of the amazing shots!

Ciao Bella, bro my name is Jayllee... TIA

Phew, what a whirlwind of a week, hundreds of kilometers covered, over 20 UNESCO world heritage sites visited, amazing new friends, funny stories, a new tan, and fun times!

Ill begin with Florence. It was astronomically amazing, the historic buildings,the DOME, the statues, monuments, bridges, sites, weather, all ten out of ten. Many people have meet have not really liked Florence, I can see why, it is quite small, but small is refreshing. It is not overwhelming, seeing all the sites is actually achievable! I'm not a huge fan of the Italian culture, but their buildings and environment I absolutely adore. It is with out a doubt one the top five most beautiful countries I have every had the pleasure to visit.

 Florence, saw a an elderly fellow attempt to pickpocket me. Idiot. What girl carries anything in her pockets these days, it is all in the handbags mate, did he not see the size of my handbag! I'm also quite certain the tongue thrashing I gave him we he groped my short pockets motivated him to quickly disappear from my sight. This occurred on one of the oldest bridges in the world, also one of the only bridges in the world to still have functioning shops on. I am of course talking about the Ponte Vecchio bridge.I  made the killer trek up a hill, which really should be classified as a small mountain but the view was worth every tortuous step!

A day trip to Pisa was called for, it was quite easy to catch the train from the main station in Florence to Pisa, on and hour train ride. Pisa was surprisingly small, it is basically a university town. The Leaning tower of Pisa, not Pizza, was great. The white stone used and the incredible tilt was a site to behold, however what was even greater was the amount of tourists there posing with the typical pushing the tower picture. My gosh. I couldn't bring myself to do it, it also did not help that I was taking the picture myself. So a selfie whilst attempting to get the correct angle was not going to be an easy task. However I only recommend a half day trip, because to be honest that's about the only thing there. After catching the train back, I chilled in the air con at the hostel

Sunday morning had me catching a train to Roma, or Rome. My first impressions of this historic city and its 3 million population was not complementary. The people were aggressive, rude and pushy, not my kindred spirits. A lady on the short bus trip from the train station to the hostel had her laptop and purse stolen from her backpack. Welcome to Italy peeps.

 I checked in no problemo, had a lovely couple of girls in my bungalow, ended up hitting the hostels pub with them, and making a tonne of new friends! Travelers are always such a friendly bunch, always a good thing when you are traveling by yourself.

Monday morning up bright and early to begin my Italian adventure, with Busabout the Italian Tour Itinerary was super busy, but amazing. However one down point I feel that people should be aware of would be the multiple extra costs. I easily spent around 50 euro a day, far more than I had expected.

I don't want to drag on about what we did, but Ill mention a few of the highlights. I would definitely recommend anyone traveling to Italy.

• Pompeii – destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79AD
• Local boat trip to visit the glamorous Capri and chair lifts!
• The infamous Blue Grotto Cave this was surreal!
• Swim in the Mediterranean Sea on the Amalfi  coast line!
• Drive the Amalfi Coast road, one of the best scenic views in Europe 

Now to some observations...

• It is normal for men of all ages, shapes, and sizes to wear speedos, the same goes for women in bikinis. 
• If you are not tanned, you will soon be. 
• Buses will always win on one way streets. 
• Italians loved their pirate watch towers. 
• Italians can wear the most inappropriate clothing to go hiking in. 
• There is no such thing a traffic rules, however over here,  it is polite to toot your horn, as you are signifying- to other drivers wear you are and what you are doing. 

I have explored Rome, what a historic city. However this is also the place in all my travels that I have seen the most obscene amounts of tourists. Honest to goodness I have never seen lines for attractions as long as these, almost a k long. Ridiculous. I found that very off putting, so I did not go into any of the historic buildings, because lets face it i am so not patient enough to wait that long.

I have to pack up my stuff today, getting ready to fly back to London on Saturday. I cannot wait to have my own bedroom, to stop living out of a suit case!