Today was our last day in South East Asia - tonight we move to Australia!

We have had a wonderful two weeks in Bali, starting with a week in Ubud from where we last wrote.

Saturday 22nd was spent travelling in a small van visiting all sorts of places in central Bali along with our driver/guide who had excellent English and made the day very interesting. First stop was a traditional Balinese house complete with a huge carved stone gateway and a number of small mud/bamboo huts inside. Every house, shop and hotel in Bali has it's own temple at which offerings are made every day. This is along with the many village temples. It was interesting that to enter any temple you must wear a sarong (even if you are wearing trousers) and also that girls are not allowed to enter while on their period as this offends the gods! The house also had some pigs, chickens and a porcupine!

The next stop was at a temple called the 'Elephant Cave Temple' because there was a small cave in the back wall with a statue of Ganesh (the Elephant God). The temple was very impressive although a large part of it had tumbled down the hill during the last eruption of the nearby volcano! Next we visited another temple, this one a water temple which was based around a holy spring. You could see where the water came out of the ground making beautiful patterns in the black sand. The water was fed through pipes and into another pool where people moved along the pipes washing in each one as each represented something different. For example, our guide told us that you washed in one of the pipes if you had had a nightmare the night before, and the water would wash out the bad spirits who had given you the nightmare. The temple was decorated with gold leaf.

After this we then went to a coffee plantation where we also saw papaya, avocado, snake fruit (the outside looks and feels just like snake-skin but the fruit tastes a bit like apple), vanilla, cocoa, cinamon and lots of other amazing fruits and spices growing. We were invited to taste the hot chocolate, coffee, ginseng coffee, ginger tea and coconut wine while watching them roast coffee in the traditional way over a fire.

The next stop on our day trip was the volcano Mount Batur. Arriving just before rain set in (as it does without fail every afternoon in Bali at about 2pm!) we managed to get an amazing view across to the still smoking cones in the middle of the crater and across the crater lake.

Easter Sunday was more relaxed with a walk over the rice fields to the organic restaurant we had been to a couple of days before. Again we sat and played cards while watching the rain and a huge thunderstorm! We managed to find a shop selling cadbury's chocolate, although no easter eggs this year!

On the Monday we set off on a bus to Padangbai (with broken air conditioning so incredibly stuffy and hot!) on the East coast. We arrived to find a very dismal looking town in the rain and the whole place had a power cut! The town's one ATM had no power so we set off to find a guesthouse having changed 10 dollars and hoping power would come back soon so we could get more money out! After a walk to the beach in the rain the rest of the day was spent sheltering on out porch reading books.

The next morning was brighter so we headed to Blue Lagoon where we rented snorkels and sunbeds. We saw some amazing fish - all sorts of colours, lots we recognised from Finding Nemo and an Austrian girl we were with saw a shark! The following day we decided to try out scuba diving. The first lesson was in a swimming pool where we learnt to clear our mask, take the mouthpiece out and swim around. Then it was out on their boat into the sea. The first fish we saw was a lion fish (apparently quite dangerous!). Saw a lot of coral teeming with all sorts of fish, Alex saw a moray eel (although I managed to miss it) and we also saw a bright blue stingray. Came out of the water about 30 minutes later very glad we had decided to give scuba diving a go.

The rest of the afternoon we stayed at the scuba diving centre chatting to people, including a South African man, Neville, who had rented a car and was driving around the whole of Bali. After only a few minutes of chatting to him he invited us to join him! The evening was spent at a nearby reggae bar that Neville had recommended, trying the local spirit 'Arak' which no-one seemed to know what it was made from (either coconut or rice!?) and was served from an interesting looking plastic bottle!

The next morning we went to have a look at the nearby temple (turned out to be half fallen down and not really worth the uphill walk in the morning heat!) followed by a visit to a white sand beach. It was just like you imagine a perfect beach should look like with pure white sand, completely clear turquoise water and a few bamboo huts along the back selling cold cokes! After a quick lunch in Padangbai we set off on our road trip, Alex and Neville in the front and me squeazed into the back along with all our bags (there was no boot!). We had some spectacular view across mountainsides covered in terraced rice fields. Along the way we decided to stop off at a roadside stall to try the infamous fruit Durian! We had been told that the smell was terrible but the taste was much better. The elderly couple who sold it to us didn't understand and English but they laughed when our faces told them how bad we thought the fruit tasted! We then had to rush back to the car for our water! We arrived in Amed looking for some cheap accommodation and eventually found some in the next door town of Jemeluk. Here we immediately rented snorkels and went out into the rather plain looking black-pebble bay having been told there was great snorkeling there. We were very surprised when we found a huge coral reef within metres of the shore! Hundreds of fish greeted us along with very bright coloured coral of every possible kind. We spent about 2 hours admiring the coral before a thunderstorm came and we went off for dinner at a nearby restaurant with a live band playing a mix of rock and reggae.

We left early the next morning heading to a town in the North of Bali called Lovina. On the way we stopped at Tulamben where we again rented snorkels to have a look at a wreck of an old US Navy ship. It was dissapointing after the coral at Jemeluk but still very interesting, although I wasn't too keen on the huge fish which seemed more interested in me than I was in them! Next stop was a tiny roadside cafe for lunch before walking 2km through some amazing jungle to a waterfall. We met a Balinese man on the way who told is all about the plants we were walking past.

We arrived in Lovina late afternoon and spent the rest of the evening enjoying yet another live band at the restaurant, this time a four person band (guitar/singer, base, bongos and bells) but they were also our cooks and waiters so they swapped over positions in the band until it was entirely different people!

In the morning we set off for some hot springs which turned out to be a series of pools each with fountains of water pouring into them. Very nice and relaxing despite the smells of sulphur!

Before we met Neville he had met a Balinese man named Tarzan who had offered to take Neville to his home in West Bali. He seemed very happy to have two extra guests and after parking our car we followed him down a tiny track for about 20 mins until we reached his bamboo house (made up of two small huts, a small veranda for sitting on and a pig!). There his wife produced an amazing meal of chicken cooked in various different ways, vegetables, rice and fruit. After meeting all of Tarzans family (including his children, his sisters family and his father-in-law) we went down to the river for a swim.

We then went with Tarzan to find some accommodation. The first place we found (a very run-down and dirty looking place) charged us 30,000 Rupiah (about 2 pounds) but after we put our bags into the room doubled the price!

Tarzan then took us to the coast where his cousin and uncle took us fishing on their tiny traditional fishing boats. These consist of a single piece of wood hollowed out into a boat shape and two pieces of bamboo on either side acting as stabilizers. Once out in the ocean (with amazing views over Bali on one side and Java on the other) we were taught (or rather shown as Tarzan's cousin had no English!) how to fish with no bait. This basically involved dropping a line with hooks attached into the water with a weight and waiting until you felt something bite. I managed to catch a total of 8 mackerel and Alex 14! Neville (who was on another boat) caught one jellyfish!!!!

After returning to land we went back to our room intending just to have a shower but decided that the place just wasn't worth the money we were paying to stay there so we quietly packed up our bags and left, finding a much nicer place down the road for half the price!

We then went back to the beach area where Tarzan's cousin cooked the fish for our dinner over an open fire made with coconut shells. The fish tasted amazing, much better than expected while the head and bones were given to the dogs.

After saying thank you to Tarzan for such a brilliant day, we set off to find a bar and ended up at some huge music festival! We paid the small amount to get in and found ourselves surrounded by Balinese teenagers wearing their bike helmets! We decided after watching two acts that it wasn't really our thing and returned to the guesthouse for bed!!

On the way to Sanur the next day we stopped off at Pura Tanah Lot, a temple set on a rock sticking out of the sea. We had a very dramatic view over to the temple as the waves were huge in a thunderstorm. We had lunch at a crazy golf course we found by the road (I lost!) before arriving at Sanur in time to get an amazing view over to a huge volcano.

The last few days have been spent relaxing on the beach at Sanur. We said goodbye to Neville who flew to Vietnam on Monday and spent the last couple of days in the company of two Dutch girls.

Tonight we fly to Australia and begin our travels of our 2nd continent!