Monday 14th January 2008

Our alarm went off at about 7.30am this morning, but Nikki was already awake - I think it was a bit hot for her again last night. The alarm was set so early because today, we'd arranged to charter a car and explore the island. For a car, a driver and all the petrol and time, it only cost us Rp450,000 (just under £25). After breakfast, we sat in reception waiting for our guide and when he arrived... we were off!

The first stop of the day was in a small place just on the outskirts of Kuta, where we got to watch some Barong Dancing. It was pretty good and told the story of a fight between good and evil spirits. When the dancing had finished, we had some photos taken with the 'stars' and then went outside to meet our driver.

Next, we went to a small town North of Kuta called Ubud, which looked really cool - there was loads there, like Kuta, but without the hustle-and-bustle. We stopped at a place called the Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary, which was awesome! It was a huge old forest containing loads of ancients temples - all of which was inhabited by loads of naughty monkeys. There were loads of people outside, selling fruit to feed them - and they were more than happy to steal that! Anyone that did buy some, but didn't dish it out quickly enough got climbed all over and we even seen one girl get bit! Luckily, they ignored us - so we got to take pictures and laugh at everyone else without any hassle.

After the Monkey Sanctuary, we made a quick stop at a place called Tegalalang, which are the rice terraces - and they were stunning! They were loads of steps and platforms just carved into the sides of the grassy hills. Next, we jumped back in the car and stopped at a place called Kintamani - where we had brilliant views of the valleys and the (active) volcano in the distance.

We were now up in the North of Bali, so we started making our way South again and stopped at Tirta Empul which is a giant temple and spring. Because it's a sacred place, we had to put on sarongs and scarfs before we could enter. The whole place looked really ancient and apparently, there are inscriptions that date back to about AD926.

Our final stop of the day was in Goa Gajah, or Elephant Cave, which was discovered in the 1920s. It wasn't as big as the temple at Tirta Empul, but was still pretty cool. By now, it was late in the afternoon so we jumped back in the car and made our way back to Kuta.

We had an amazing time today - and Bali, especially the more rural parts, is beautiful and NOTHING like Kuta. Everyone here seems really happy and are all working really hard, trying to get by. On the drive back - we saw loads of mopeds carrying anything from one... to FOUR people - that was quite a sight: there was a small child stood clinging to the front (as if her life depended on it (and it probably did)), behind her it was her Dad who was driving, next it was a larger child who was holding onto Dad - although she needn't have bothered, because behind her was Mum who was also holding onto Dad - therefore squashing child number two in... brilliant! One of the annoying things was having to pay to park in places - and then having to pay someone else when we left the same place. Our poor driver even got stopped by the police at a roadblock and they made him hand over money.

As soon as we got back to Kuta this evening we went straight out for food. We started walking towards one of the main streets called Poppies Lane II, but on the way the Mother of all thunder storms started. We'd been told it was the 'Wet Season' and now we were going to find out. We didn't want to go too far in case the rain didn't stop (and it didn't), so we jumped into the first restaurant we came across. It was actually a good choice. It was only small and was playing reggae music, plus the food was great. We had three main courses (between us), some corn fritters and two large beers and the total price (including a tip) was only Rp70,000... less than £5!

Man, if Bali is anything to go by, we are gonna LOVE Asia!