Straight after the mountain we were transported to Senggigi, feeling slightly broken after our trek but feeling pretty accomplished.

We got to Senggigi around 19:00 so it was dark, one of the things we hate most is arriving somewhere new late at night with absolutely no idea of where we are going to stay but it's a situation we always seem to find ourselves in. Straight across the road was a hotel which we checked out, maybe a little more pricey than we usually pay but it was clean, had air-conditioning but most importantly for us, it had hot water to wash all the black dirt off of us! Like I said it was also straight across the road so I didn't have to suffer too much walking with my bad knee trying to find somewhere to stay! However!!! Travelling with women makes life a lot less straight forward with Steph INSISTING that we go elsewhere, fairly happy with what we had found I INSISTED that we were going to stay here, but then Emily INSISTED that I go with Steph to look at other places while Emily and Dom conveniently sat with the bags while I limped around Senggigi in the dark. Long story short, we ended up staying at the first hotel for 4 nights!!! All of us!

Once we finally checked in I think it took us about 45 minutes in the shower to actually get clean and it felt amazing! We met with Dom and Steph and went for a nice meal where we enjoyed eating on a table and chairs again all ordering western food as we no longer can stomach rice and noodles.

While we were in Senggigi one of the things we had to do was get a massage! Steph, Emily and I all went for an hour long full body massage to help reduce some of the aches and pains we were suffering from. It was exactly what we needed and only cost us RP60,000 each, or £3! For an hour!! Definitely won't be our last massage!

We also had to sort out Emily's feet - covered in blisters that were now infected due to the amount of dust and dirt that got in them from the Volcano. We went to the pharmacy to get some ointment, unfortunately they couldn't speak much English but Steph had got an infected cut before and gave us her ointment she got which made this process a lot easier. The pharmacist recognised this ointment and got us the same as well as some bandages to wrap the blisters in order to keep them clean when we go out. Hopefully they won't take long to heal!

With the rest of our time we hired some scooters which were the poshest ones yet! The keys came with some little gadget on it and when you pressed the button your scooter would beep, essentially screaming out to you that "I'm here" when parked amongst hundreds of scooters. We visited another temple, explored the city, went to an Indonesian shopping mall and sorted out our VISA extension. We went on the Thursday and luckily managed to persuade them to get it done for us on Friday! Although we were frustrated to find that when we got them back they had stamped us out of the country a day earlier than we are entitled! Not only can't they count, it also means that they completely ignored our copy for proof of onward travel which had our flight date on it! In the end we didn't even bother arguing with them over it because we were lucky enough to get it done in less than 24 hours, a process that would normally take 3 days.

Feeling like we have recovered enough and with our VISA's sorted we split from Steph and Dom whom have been great to travel with over the last few days and made our way to Lombok International airport to book a flight to Yogyarkata.

So we got picked up at 3:00 in the morning and made our way to the airport with no flight reservation made. This already sounds like a bad idea! But we literally had no choice because the only airline that does the only flight which leaves once a day to where we needed to go do not let you book for a flight online and pay for it by card less than 48 hours before departure! Stupid! So anyway we arrive to the airport and try to book a flight which was extremely hard work because their English was simply awful. Don't get me wrong my Bahasa isn't any better. Eventually someone was there to help us and it's getting very close to the point where check in is good to close, we were about to book this flight until we found out that they have almost doubled the price to fly today! DOUBLE! In the end our best option was to book for a flight the following morning which was at the price we were expecting to pay and paid for for it....on our card! Couldn't believe it, I had all this cash in my pocket to pay for this flight because it wouldn't let us pay for it by card on the internet, yet I'm stood here in the airport paying with my damn card! I would be very interested in speaking to their policy makers because this is one is the biggest joke I've come across so far.

So now we grabbed another taxi, struggling to find one that's not trying to rip us off and willing to take us. I think a lot of them must be finishing their night shifts because they really didn't want to take us! Anyway, we managed to get a taxi to this homestay we found, arriving at 5:30 and felt so bad when the driver had rung ahead waking them up for us to arrive with the guy opening the gate for us with a blanket wrapped around him. Him and his wife made us some tea and coffee and then even gave up what looked like their bed for us (with clean bedding) so that Emily didn't have to sleep across the chair and on my lap. They were soooo nice! We felt terrible when we just couldn't stay in their room because there was a spider so big that I think it would actually eat me alive. We did try, but when we saw how quickly it moved from one side of the wall to the other we just said NOPE and walked out. It didn't live in a web, so this spider clearly hunts for its food and I am not falling asleep to then get woken up by this things looking for something to eat!

We hired a scooter and did some exploring around Kuta Lombok, grabbed some breakfast and a coffee, found some beaches to relax by almost running out of fuel in the process and had some dinner. While we were eating dinner many local children came around trying to sell us brackets and necklaces at first this was very annoying. Their parents literally dropping the children off on their scooters waiting outside and then driving to the next restaurant. However one little girl came in and she was really sweet, at first we said no but then she was still there when we left the restaurant. Emily had a little conversation with her, her name was Sue and she shook her hand. She decided to buy an anklet off her. I am glad I did. She was very grateful and no parents came and collected her. She was literally wandering the streets in the dark. When we left we even saw her sat under a street light counting the money she had got that evening. I really hope that the money will go towards helping her get a better future. We had another early night ready to get up early AGAIN to catch our plane!

C & E x