Thursday 17th January 2008

I don't think Nikki slept too well last night - she said she kept waking up - expecting to see the giant spider led in bed next to her. Luckily, there was no such episode and at about 9am we went out on to our porch, where one of the staff brought us our breakfast. We had green banana pancakes, fruit salad with tea and coffee... this is definitely the life!

We started our day by walking into Ubud and visiting the museum. To get in you have to cross a bridge from the main street and then climb some steps up into some trees - it made the whole place seem quite mysterious. The museum was full of the history of Balinese art, some of which was pretty cool.

This afternoon we had a look around the Ubud markets, which are pretty big and absolutely packed with stalls. Each stall was selling similar stuff to the next and so it was good fun having them fight over your business. Just like in Kuta, each person was convinced they had something for you... but they didn't for us!

Afterwards we went for a nice long walk down towards the Monkey Forest. We didn't go in again, but we stood outside watching the monkeys. Some of them were really naughty. One had stolen a bottle of water from somewhere and another, who tried stealing fruit, thought it was a better idea to climb a tree and throw things at the people below. As we headed back up to the main high-street we stopped for a massage in one of the spas. Me and Nikki were in the same room, which was nice - but it was a bit embarrassing for me because when they asked us to strip down to our underwear, I wasn't wearing any! They said it was fine - to strip anyway, I could wear this tiny see through skirt-thing. Well, that was even more embarrassing... it barely covered anything - at least I was led on my front I thought... D'oh! After half-an-hour I was asked to turn over, so that I could have my front massaged, but i'm happy to report, there were no indecent incidents. Included in the price we paid was the use of the hot shower. My massage finished about 5 minutes before Nikki's - and yet they were still encouraging me to get into the shower, which was in the same room - while they continued! I told them 'no thanks' and that i'd have one back at our hotel

Tonight, feeling all relaxed and refreshed, me and Nikki went out onto the high-street for a meal. We went into a place called Nomads, which was quite a posh restaurant. We ate like Kings and Queens, and had amazing meals. We had three-courses plus beers and our total bill was... £8 - yippee!

Note To Self: Next time I go for a massage... WEAR UNDERWEAR!