Sunday 13th January 2008

We woke up without the use of any alarms this morning - it was just too hot to stay led in bed for any longer (well, on top of the bed - it was too hot to get in). Instead, we got ourselves up and went down for breakfast. When we were ready, we went out for another walk. We walked in a different direction to yesterday and were gone for hours! I think we must have seen the entire city on foot.

Today wasn't particularly sunny, but was really humid and was really taking it out of us, so when we came across a huge department store - we couldn't wait to get inside and into the air-con. Whilst we were there we had some lunch, which we got to eat on a balcony overlooking the sea. When Nikki heard me saying 'hello mate, how are you?' she thought 'how can he possibly know someone over here?', but it wasn't the heat sending me mad - I was talking to the family we were sat next to on the plane ride over. It was their first time in Bali too - and today was the first day they'd felt brave enough to leave their hotel. They seemed quite excited about being out and we assured them everything would be fine, before saying goodbye.

This afternoon we found the way back to our hotel and just chilled out for the pool. The walking must've really done us in because we both fell asleep for a little while. Afterwards we had showers and then went out for a meal. We still weren't brave enough to venture too far in the dark and settled on a place about 5 minutes away. The food was lovely - and best of all, it was cheap - and so was the beer. We both had large bottles of a beer called Bintang (which were about a pint-and-a-half) and only cost Rp18,000 - £1... bargain, and this was a posh restaurant! Once we'd finished our meals, we took a slow walk back to our hostel and even stopped to buy some things off the small market stalls on the way.

I don't know about the rest of Bali, but Kuta isn't very attractive. There are hundreds of dogs walking around, the pavements are falling to bits and the place is absolutely packed with traffic - but despite all this, it's still a cool place to be. There is definitely a good, cheerful vibe about the place, which is good - seeing as it's been hit by three separate bomb attacks in the last couple of years and the Tsunami which affected Indonesia and most of South East Asia.

Yippee for cheap food and beer - yippee for Bali!