Boats, karaoke, and the first painful goodbye

So we continued our month-long paradise sojourn. We spent lots of time relaxing at Bintang Beach Bungalows, hanging out with our new Indonesian friends and fellow travellers.

Shout outs to James and Laura from the USA; Felicia from Sweden and Gwen from Holland. Not to mention the guy who looked just like John Locke from Lost – a very weird encounter when you're on a desert island! 

And special mentions for Danny, Tim and Larissa from Germany; the beautiful, classy Marga; and Paul, Paul, Emmanuel and Kerry from the UK. Thank you for the music!

Dave and I thoroughly enjoyed being long-term residents at the bungalows, sitting in our spots at the bar, imparting our hard-earned (?!) knowledge of the island to newcomers like sage locals, and reaping the benefits of being well established customers – such as extra helpings of fruit salad, free chips, and use of the bicycles when we needed to do a run to the shops.

Speaking of bikes, one of our favourite and most amusing novelties on the island were the ice cream vendors who, since there's no motorised transport on the Gilis, cycle round with an coolbox strapped to the front of their bikes and a loudspeaker playing out the jingle announcing their approach. So funny!

Danny, Tim and Larissa were lovely and quickly became firm friends and partners for sharing music and playing hours and hours of cards. Our 'Shit Head' tournaments (Becky: UK, Dave: Australia, Danny: Germany, and Ali: Indonesia) were fiercely fought battles for international supremacy. Shame we didn't keep score.

Dave, me, Danny & Ali

Marga, Emmanuelle & Paul

We also enjoyed the local kitty soap opera. There was a serious love square going on, which was very entertaining... Sambal the resident cat had a girlfriend (Mrs Sambal) who was being wooed by Marley, the big black cat from Legend, the reggae bar further down the coast. Then there was Mama Cat, who was looking after the last surviving kitten of her litter of four, who we're pretty sure was the first lady in Sambal's life, as the kittens all looked very much like him! She and Mrs Sambal really didn't get on; there were a few stand offs and at least one cat fight. Who needs TV?!

Sambal. It's tough being so in demand!

Mrs Sambal 

Dave and I had a lot of fun messing about on boats when we were on the Gilis, including a couple of day trips.

You can easily do ferry hops between the three islands; Gili Trawangan is the 'party' island, Gili Meno is the really quiet one, and Gili Air is somewhere in between (the Goldilocks island - juuuuuust right). We paid a visit to Gili T for a day, which is bigger and slicker than Air and with a slightly more commercial edge and not quite so laid back. 

You can definitely tell it's the party island – mainly from the groups of very hungover looking teens dragging their flip-flops to a local eatery for a fry-up, and the pretty blatant marketing of hallucinogenic fungi.

It's still very beautiful though and we walked about half way around the coast then cut inland to find somewhere for lunch and looked around the shops before hopping on the late-afternoon ferry back to Gili Air. When we got back it was quite a relief to return to the chilled place we were calling home! And like the pros we are, we made it back just in time for happy hour. As we sat drinking our Bintangs and munching some free popcorn in Blues Corner Cafe bar, looking out at the beach, we saw a kingfisher come down and land on the sand, gobble something down and then fly away. Sadly it was too quick for us to get a picture but take our word for it that it was very pretty and exciting. Not as thrilling as the other wildlife sighting we were soon to be treated to however... the indigenous Indonesian sand digger monster!

A few days later, we decided to venture out on a snorkelling trip and go out on a boat with a group. It was a pretty good bargain at about a fiver each. We were up early and both very excited to get into the crystal clear turquoise waters that we'd heard are so perfect for seeing tropical underwater life. However, the further the boat got away from the shore, and the deeper the water got, the more freaked out I got, until by the time it had anchored and everyone was getting their gear on, I was in full-on panic attack mode! I was just really scared of getting into the deep open water and could hardly move! But Dave calmed me down and as soon as he said "You don't have to go in if you don't want to" I was fine, and stayed very happily on the boat, sunning myself on deck, looking at the reef through the glass bottom and taking photos of Dave in the water. He had three really good dives and saw three turtles, lots of tropical fish and starfish. And I managed to see a turtle through the glass-bottom, so was really pleased with that.

During our last week, we even managed to venture off of the island over-night - quite a wrench! - when Ali took us over to Lombok. Dave and I jumped in an outrigger early one morning and were met by Ali at the harbour in Bangsal. He'd arranged a friend of his to drive us to Senaru in the north of the island where we could visit some waterfalls. We trekked through some lush greenery, sometimes wading through icy cold, fast-running mountain springs, and pretty soon found ourselves sprayed by fresh tumbling water and swimming in freezing cold pools. The perfect antidote to the tropical heat! 

Afterwards we piled, dripping wet, back into the car and drove south to Mataram, where we visited Ali's mother-in-law's warung for something to eat. Ali and his friend ordered a range of local dishes, including fried fish, gado gado and tempe and we all tucked in. We also had the priviledge of meeting Ali's young wife and his 8 month old son Zidane who, like most children, was inexplicably enamoured with Dave and couldn't take his eyes off him! 

After lunch we were back in the car and off to Sengigi where we checked into a small homestay that Ali knew. It was cheap and simple and, most importantly, close to the local karaoke bars. Another friend of Ali's, Daffy, joined us for some early evening drinks, getting-to-know-you-chit-chat and invaluable 'Shit Head' lessons. 

Then it was time for Dave, Ali and I to hit the town, where we soon found a karaoke club we felt lived up to our weekend-rockstar status. Asian karaoke is something else! They seem to take it 100% seriously for one thing - no tongues in cheeks here - and the songs and videos are projected onto a big screen while the microphone's brought to you so you can serenade the audience from the comfort of your big leather sofa.

We watched about an hour of Indonesian 'classics' sung by the locals, with Ali helpfully translating the stories of the songs for us. There was a huge variation of themes: 

• boy loving girl who didn't love him anymore
• girl loving boy who didn't love her anymore
• boy loving girl who still loved him but was marrying someone else
• girl loving boy who still loved her but was marrying someone else. 

The ones that were most difficult to follow were the ones that didn't seem to have their own music video, so were accompanied by something entirely random. Our favourite of these was the video that was shown alongside a couple of different Indonesian unrequited love songs, in which a man in Canada went prospecting for gold.

Soon it was our turn, and Ali eagerly called over the man in charge of the microphones to ask if we could request some English-language songs. This was no problem and he brought us over slips of paper, telling us to write down what we wanted to sing. Doubtful, we asked if he had a list of the English songs they had. No problem, we were assured, just write what you want. So sticking to our failsafes, I scribbled down 'Son Of A Preacher Man' by Dusty Springfield and Dave chose 'Let's Dance' by David Bowie. Our slips collected, we waited patiently, drank our Bintangs and listened to the wonderful renditions from the locals. Pretty quickly the guy came back, shaking his head 'no', they had neither of these songs. What a shock! So we were ushered up to see the DJ in his booth. After a lot of failed suggestions and confused shaking of the head (Who are these 'Guns N Roses'? 'Pulp' who?) we fell back on two songs there was no way he wouldn't have... Mariah Carey's 'Hero' for me, and Brian Adams' 'Anything I Do I Do It For You' for Dave. And the reception! It was like X-Factor, when you sing a first line of the song and then the audience immediately gives you an encouraging round of applause (or that's what I've been told!) They were all so generous and enthusiastic, we couldn't not reward them with another – thank heavens the DJ had an everyone-knows-it classic so easy to duet: Queen's 'Bohemian Rhapsody' of course! It was such a great night, so much fun!!!

The next day, after a breathtaking drive along the bays of Lombok's north western coast, it was back to Gili Air for our last couple of days. And we were feeling more than a little pouty about it. We spent our time mostly at BBB, hanging out and partying with our friends, and soaking in the sights, sounds and smells of the wonderful island we'd come to love so much.

So lucky we had lots exciting adventures ahead of us to look forward to, or I don't think we'd have been able to leave!

Our contribution to Bintang's farewell sunglasses collection

Gili Air: Our first home-away-from-home

Gili Air (pronounced Gilly Aye-Er) very quickly charmed the flip-flops off us both and we were soon in no rush to leave. It was so lovely, after all the preparations for the wedding and travels and the busy first few weeks of the honeymoon, to find somewhere so chilled where we could just sit still together for a while. We experienced that common traveller phenomenon of planning to visit somewhere for 4-5 days and ending up staying a whole lot longer... a month by the time we left! We just couldn't think of anywhere else we'd have been happier at that point.

A lot of it had to do with the home-away-from-home we discovered at Bintang Beach Bungalows (BBB). It was perfect for us; really great staff who made us very welcome and a good atmosphere with the other guests. We'd play cards, read, listen to music, chat and generally watch the world go by.

Dave contemplating life, the universe & everything

Two of the many lovely people we met were a couple of girls who'd been on the island for a few months and had ended up doing some work at BBB. Nadine and Kim were really helpful, giving us tips about things like cheap places to eat and good swimming spots. They also lent us their external hard drive so we copied a bunch of music and movies – really handy on quiet nights when you just fancied flopping in front of a film or wanted to play some tunes in the bar.

We did have a nasty shock during our first couple of days. Andi, the manager of the bungalows who had greeted us on our first day, tragically died in a motorbike crash on Lombok. Dave and I had been on a little exploration of the island and came back to the bungalows one afternoon to find a very sombre group of people sharing a drink, and we were told of the accident. Later that night we joined the staff and Nadine and Kim for a small 'wake' in Andi's honour. We knew him for all of about 48 hours, but the love that the others felt for him was palpable and it was clear that he was a great guy who would be really missed. He was 34. R.I.P. Andi.

Deep breath. Anyway...

Our bungalow was about a 30 second walk to the beach and Bintang's bar/restaurant, where there were little open huts called berugak and bamboo furniture and cushions set up on the sand. We spent a lot of time sitting up at the bar chatting to the guys who worked there, Ali and Adi – who seemed to be on duty every hour of the day, with Ali even sleeping at night behind the bar! We'd have our breakfast there every morning – usually the classic banana pancakes (spelled 'pencaks' on the menu - now all they'll ever be called by us!) and tall glasses of muddy Lombok coffee. Always that gamble of 'can I get one last sip without getting a mouthful of grounds?'

Ali & Adi

There wasn't any WiFi access at BBB, but it was available in some of the bars around the island, even if it was a little unreliable. There would also be regular power cuts, as the island runs off of its own generators that go down pretty regularly. At one point we were having 2-3 blackouts a day, which was a bit of a pain when the fan in our room or the speakers in the bar cut out.

There was a laundry service (or 'lundry' as the sign read.. another term we've adopted) and we treated ourselves to our first machine wash since being away. Oh the delight of simple things like clean clothes – really clean, not just done with shower gel in the basin! On this subject, I had to hold my hands up to Dave and congratulate him for the excellent forethought that led to his purchase of a travel plug before we left the UK. It's something I didn't really see the point of, but weirdly nowhere has plugs for their plugholes and how else were we supposed to wash our smalls?? 

We were also very pleased to have bought other 'travel essentials' like cotton sleeping bags (just in case of bedbugs), torches (the pathways on Gili Air weren't lit), padlocks (the only way to lock the door of our bungalow), and the wire mesh backpack cage (just to keep things like our laptop and passports extra safe in our room while we were out and about).

Another novelty was the open-air shower in our bungalow. I was unsure at first about it being outside, and about the cold water too, but it was perfect after a day on the beach, even if it wasn't always too relaxing dodging the bees that were somehow fascinated with the running water.

BBB did really good food (both local and Western) and we settled into a routine of eating breakfast and then a decent meal in the late afternoon, with maybe a fruit salad around midday. That saw us through no problem, but it's not like we were burning much energy sitting on the beach all day! Elsewhere on the island you could eat a good bowl of nasi campur (rice and yummy stuff) for about £1 in the warungs slightly inland but the island speciality was delicious fresh fish BBQs – restaurants would display the day's catch out front and you could choose your fish, which would then be cooked fresh for you over coconut shells. YUM!

There was a big dance party at a bar called Space on our first Saturday on the island, where they had some international DJs come over to play. Dave and I went along with Ali once he'd finished work and had a few beers and a dance in the sand. They'd set up a stage and loads of UV decorations and black lights, plus people doing fire shows. The music was 'psytrance', which isn't exactly our genre of choice, but it was good fun and my first ever beach party! (How had it taken me 30 years??)

We had our own beach party at BBB one night too. Nadine and Kim were leaving for Australia, so they threw a big farewell send off. There was a bonfire on the beach and the locals they had gotten to know over their months on the island cooked up a fantastic feast of grilled fish, water spinach, rice, tempe, and a delicious spicy sauce. We drank far too much 'home brew' rice wine (called 'brum', preferably said as a kind of car noise) being passed around and plenty of good music for dancing.

Dave enjoys the local brew

James, Laura & Ali

 We felt like we'd settled in and found a good bunch of people to spend time with... and those people were the main reason why Gili Air will always have a special place in our hearts.

Down south in Bali

It was time for us to move on from Ubud and travel to the south coast of Bali. We needed to head down to Padang Bai to catch the ferry over to the Gili islands, which lie just off the coast of Lombok.

A couple of days in advance (before things started shutting down for Galungan) we went to the Perama office in Ubud to buy our bus tickets. It cost us 50,000 rupiah each - about £3.30.

So it was time to pack up our lives into our rucksacks and leave the Indra Homestay behind.

We'd met a really nice English couple called Justin and Ros during our stay with the Indras, and they gave us some great tips about the Gilis and how to get there, like where to stay and how much we should be paying for things. They were our first encounter with travelers that resulted in some fantastic word-of-mouth advice.

Dave and the luggage at the bus station

Humping our packs down to the Perama office on the Thursday morning, we stocked up on bottled water and after a relatively short wait got onto the bus. It was a decent size but completely full, with no leg room and everyone's luggage piled up front between the passangers and the driver. They really pack you in!

The bus journey itself  was a fun, easy, 90 minute trip. It was great to be out on the road again after being in Ubud for a while, and to see the Balinese landscape whizzing past the windows of our bus. 

There was still a lot of Galungan activity, with penjors lining the roads and people attending religious ceremonies. When we reached the coast we saw a huge gathering of people down by the beach.

We'd found ourselves some accommodation in Padang Bai with  a bit of advance online research. Marco Inn is run by a Dutch guy and his Balinese wife. We contacted Jacob beforehand to make sure they had a room, and this turned out to be a good move. When we all piled off the bus on the main street outside the Padang Bai Perama office, we were immediately hit by the onslaught of guys trying to direct us to their guesthouses. Having something organised in advance was a bonus as it meant we could politely say we already had somewhere booked. 

We found Marco Inn pretty easily and were shown to our room on the first floor. It was small but comfy, with a double bed, cold water shower and one of those toilets that doesn't have a normal flush but instead has a big bucket of water with a cup that you have to empty into the loo to get rid of the 'evidence'. We paid 150,000 rupiah per night - about £10 for the room, with breakfast.

Jacob and his family were really welcoming and there was a small open courtyard where we could chill out and play with their two pet bunny rabbits!

The downside? We were staying really close to the ferry port and centre of town, and it was ridiculously noisy at night. During the day Padang Bai is a pretty sleepy little harbour town but we had a restless, sometimes sleepless, stay. Earplugs were no use when the ferry horn and tannoy, cockerels crowing, dogs barking, and the mosque call to prayer all went off in a ridiculous middle-of-the-night cacophony.

Our main mission was to organise our transport to and from the Gili islands. At that point we didn't really know how long we wanted to stay on the Gilis, but the idea was to head over to Gili Air first for a few days and then see what happened. There are a couple of ways to get over to the islands, mainly the fast boat (quick and expensive) and the public ferry (slow and cheap). We opted for the latter option and had a bit of a scout around for deals; there were loads of local agents advertising the trip and we finally bought our tickets from a guy who was set up at the end of the main street nearest the ferry (Pesona Bintang tours). After some bargaining, we managed to agree upon open return tickets for the two of us for: 

• ferry from Padang Bai to Lembar
• bus transfer up to Bangsal
• boat from Bangsal to Gili Air
• back from any of the Gili islands whenever we wanted. 

It cost us 400,000 rupiah - about £25 - which we were pretty pleased with. 

As well as the official stuff we needed to sort out, we also spent some time along Padang Bai beach front, which was really pretty with lots of traditional boats moored up and bobbing in the shallows. It was lovely being back at the coast after all that time spent inland in Ubud, and the constant calls from the hawkers had changed from "Transport?!" "Massage!?" to "Diving!?" "Boat trip?!"

We spent two nights in Padang Bai and found a really cheap little warung that fed us well on nasi mie and goreng and where we could pick up the unsecured WiFi from the nearby bar (we didn't have internet access at Marco's)! 

On Saturday morning we got up, repacked, and - using our magic piece of paper from the tour office - boarded the ferry to our desert island getaway.

Ubud: Illness, rice fields, hitting the backpacker trail

Ubud is often called the 'cultural centre of Bali'. It certainly had art galleries and traditional performances aplenty, but I get the feeling the description is more reflective of the town 10 years ago. Now it bears more resemblance to the slightly less flattering image it has earned from the book Eat, Pray, Love and the subsequent Julia Roberts movie; a nice place where middle aged women in linen trousers do yoga, eat tofu and hunt for handsome younger men.

Although this isn't really our cup of tea, we did have some real fun in Ubud and managed to find some of the charm that it probably had in greater abundance in the past.

Ubud had an entirely different pace to our time in Tembok, filled with new sights, sounds and smells, festivities, frustrations, rural rice fields and urban tourist chaos.

We had a bit of a stuttering start to our time there. After arriving at Waka Di Ume, Dave was floored by a bout of severe food poisoning that put him out of action for two days and lingered for a week. I played nurse and we were grateful to be in surroundings that delivered complimentary bottled water every day and provided room service breakfasts of scrambled eggs, bacon and delicious banana pastries, and cheese burgers for dinner, to sustain my vigil. Not to mention the free, fast WiFi that allowed us to download plenty of movies for entertainment!

A quick mention here of more breakfast peculiarities from posh Bali resorts, assumedly catering for their guess at Western eating habits... garlic bread and a spoonful of mashed potato???

Dave pulled through, of course, and we were able to start enjoying the area. One highlight was an early morning trek through the rice fields. Our guide took a small group of us to the paddies and on the way we passed groups of kids heading to school, dressed in blazers and batik pattered shirts (way more interesting than any of my uniforms were!) Some of the children were hanging around outside the school, drinking tubs of weird coloured soft drinks and sweeping the small, quiet street with stick brooms. Their energy, palpable even at that early hour, was infectious.

The weather inland around Ubud was generally cooler and cloudier than it had been on the coast, but at pre-8am the day was already heating up. In the rice fields the bright white sun reflected back at us from the surface of the water. 

Intricate irrigation systems feed the large square 'pools' where the rice is grown. The precision of the planting - all straight lines of little lush green tufts - is a marvel, considering it's all done by hand. We walked along narrow earth tracks that interlace through the delicate crops and provide precarious protection from soggy feet. Close up, you see the rice sprouting up as neat individual plants, but looking out over the paddies in all directions, it became fields of solid green almost reminiscent of English rolling countryside. Except the oaks were palm trees, the hills were distant volcanoes and the sturdy farmhouses were tiny bamboo huts.

Men in sarongs and conical hats worked the land with long bamboo-handles tools. Ducks - farmed among the rice to keep the crop free of bugs - flapped and quacked around the water. The low, intense sun beat down from a bright blue sky smattered with white wispy clouds. It was beautiful.

While we were staying at the resort, we took a couple of jaunts into Ubud for food and shopping, and to get our bearings in time for leaving the security of pre-arranged accommodation.

Cafe Wayan, on the busy Monkey Forest Road, fed us well one night with nasi campur (rice and stuff), mie goreng (fried noodles), fresh garlic-roasted peanuts and unusual green pancakes stuffed with something sweet and served with ice cream. It was a sharp contrast, in both price and quality, to a disastrous meal of nasi goreng (fried rice) at Warung Lokal, and taught us a valuable lesson that cheap isn't always cheerful. But we've also learnt since that even cheaper can be GREAT (more on Gili Air's tasty £1 offerings in a later post).

On the Thursday of our second week away, we did some advance recon to find a place to stay once we hit the backpacker trail. Goodbye luxury, hello self-sufficiency! We found ourselves a nice homestay in central Ubud, on the street Jalan Hanoman. It was in budget and within an hour of beginning our search, so, deposit paid, we left happy with our first foray into 'by the seat of our pants' accommodation.

After two weeks of lovely honeymoon indulgence, on the Saturday, as organised, we arrived back to the Wayan family (not the one with the eponymous Cafe) only to be told the room had been given to someone else and they were full. All our considered planning! What of our deposit?? We would get it back. Where would we stay?? We were on the streets! Laden! Surely disaster?! Of course not. The fates had smiled upon us and gushing apologies, kind Ibu Wayan went next door to find us a room within the Indra family homestay. 20,000 rupiah more per night (about £1.30) but with free WiFi and a good room with a hot water shower, ceiling fan, clean (dolphin print) sheets and a sweet little veranda, plus breakfast each morning. Done deal! Dave was a master negotiator and bargained the rate down by 30,000 rupiah per night.

The guy in charge was a gently-spoken, middle aged man named Karta. The Indra family milled around the smallish home compound and seemed to consist of a very old parental couple, Karta and his wife, another couple who we assumed to be Karta's brother and his wife, and 4 or 5 children - boys and girls aged around 7-18. The homestay was cool and quiet - the perfect hideaway from busy Ubud. We had relatively little to do with the family, aside from pleasantries (like the evening "Selamat Malam" to the old couple as they sat watching Asian soap operas at the communal TV) and discussing breakfasts with the teenage boys on duty each morning.

And oh the breakfasts! Different each day (always with black Balinese coffee that you had to play very safe for the last couple of sips to avoid a mouthful of grounds, and fresh fruit salad of banana, papaya and pineapple with grated coconut): banana jaffle (that's a toastie), banana pancakes, black rice pudding made with coconut milk, and on the morning before Galungan, steamed rice with sauteed green veg and various spicy meats.

More on Galungan (the most important annual festival on Bali) soon...