Today is our last day in Indonesia. It is seriously hot and we have had a lovely time. At first I wrote a diary and then gave up as Internet access was pretty patchy to say the least...anyway I'll start with that...

Friday 6th November

We are currently in beautiful and hot Indonesia. We flew into Bali on Sunday evening and after we had queued for an hour for a visa on arrival and then customs it was 10pm by the time we got out of the airport. We asked the driver if there was anywhere we could get a quick bite to eat and very depressingly we were offered mcdonalds or Kentucky fried chicken. We declined and decided that after a week of stuffing ourselves silly in Singapore we could do without dinner. We'd booked the tropical Bali guesthouse to stay for the first 3 nights which cost the same as the places we stayed at in South America but couldn't have been more different. The lovely huge rooms had their own outdoor table and chairs where meals are served and were arranged around a lovely pool. Despite the huge mosquito net I was bitten to death during the night however waking up to a yummy Nasi goreng (fried rice) and fruit salad for breakfast took my mind off it for a bit. Monday was spent just in the hotel lounging around and enjoying it and we arranged to go out for the day on Tuesday with the brother of a Balinese guy that worked at the hotel. Wizma collected us after breakfast and we set off in his jeep. He told us that Bali is very different from the rest of Indonesia in being predominately Hindu (85%) as opposed to muslim. Sumatra island is in fact very strict under Islam and an Italian aid worker was recently caned in public for having a relationship with someone without them being married. Hence we're going to give that side a miss! Anyway firstly on our tour we stopped at a place with lots of ladies making beautiful batik stuff. The streets are just lined with hundreds of shops you could just buy the whole contents of- lovely handicrafts, stunning furniture, great wood carvings and huge stone sculptures. It's the type of place that makes you want to hire a whole container to ship a houseload back. We stopped to watch some wood carvers and then carried on to the sacred monkey forest. The monkeys are based in a forest surrounding 3 temples and spend their lives waiting for tourists to bring them bananas. They were very sweet with lots of babies and they seemed very fond of jumping onto me much to the amusement of everyone else. After spending some time laughing at them we got back in the jeep and drove further north. The drive itself was great watching the life out of the windows with your jaw dropping constantly at the beautiful things for sale. The day before had also been the full moon festival so all the statues (of which there are hundreds) were decorated with flowers and sarongs. We then arrived at "holy waters" temple. We put on sarongs and Wizma showed us round the beautiful area with ponds filled with huge fish and different temple areas for the gods. There were also roosters in tiny cages which they sadly use for c*** fighting- both for religion and gambling. They also put a knife in the birds foot which makes it all the more gruesome. We continued on, stopping briefly to look at perfectly constructed rice terraces, reminding us of the ones the Incas used so long ago in Peru. Next stop was the volcano- just a view from afar where someone clever had decided to impose an entrance fee to drive down the road! Locals don't have to pay it of course but sadly are affected by the tripled prives of fruit in the area for the tourists. To finish off we headed to Ubud, a nice little town where we had a snack and then visited the very touristy market. We bought some candle holders which we're regretting a little as now we have to sort out another parcel but we didn't really seem to have a choice to be honest.

On Wednesday it was an early 6.30am start to get a bus then boat to Gili Trawangan- one of a set of 3 Gili islands off the North West coast of the island of Lombok. It is very small just 1500m from north to south but very gringofied. We have been here 3 days now just relaxing and doing a lot of reading in the sunshine- I expect that is probably a little depressing to read when it's freezing in the uk but we're having a lovely time! Our room even has the luxury of air conditioning which I feel very guilty about but is kind of a necessity as it is stinking hot. There is no freshwater however so having a shower involves standing in our outdoor bathroom and pouring water over your head using a coconut from a rainwater tap! As you can imagine the fish is amazing here and you can get a huge tuna steak beautifully barbecued with rice and yummy salad for £2.50!

Tuesday 10th November

I'm writing this from Sengiggi- a village on the island of Lombok. We came here yesterday by speed boat and car- the drive was great through tiny local villages and it feels good to be somewhere a bit more "authentic" after spending the last few days just sunbathing and sleeping in a place very geared up for tourists- sadly if it continues in the same way I'm afraid to say it will be a bit like Magaluf. But then in my experience the travellers trail can be a bit like that in Asia so we will see how it continues. Anyway the most dramatic thing that happened was that I got stung by a wasp which inflated my whole arm. We also took to giving the stray cats (of which there were many) water from a home made bowl cut from a bottle. It was very hard to eat your dinner with them miaowing up at you staring with sad eyes.On the 5th it was also 5 months since we left the UK. We can't believe that it is nearly halfway through our time away. When we look back though we have been to so many places and seen so many stunning things it is so exciting that we still have 7 months left!So we are in a hut by the beach in Sengiggi- it's not a huge place but as I said before feels a lot more like being in Indonesia. The main difference between Lombok and Bali is that it is Muslim here. There are mosques in every tiny community and calls to prayer ring out through the streets. Last night we had the most amazing meal of yummy local food all at £2 a dish- we really couldn't understand the other foreigners who came in and ordered western food like steak and mash etc-it was 3 times the price and you get it in the UK! Still I guess that is the problem and why some of these places think that it's what all westerners want and you could be anywhere in the world. Anyway there's not much to write from here as I said before we're mostly just relaxing and enjoying our first bit of heat and appreciating not being working Londoners in the rain- yesterday, for example, was a fabulous Monday!

Tuesday 17th November

We are now back in Bali staying in the same place just outside of Sanur. On our last day in Lombok we hired a car at 10 quid for 24 hours and drove off around the island. First we headed for the capital as they deliver the car with a drop of fuel- just enough to get you to the petrol station which we were informed was down the road. Mataram was pretty hectic- hundreds of motorcyclists and scooters coming at you from all angles so we got some fuel for us and the car and then headed up to the north of the Island and into the countryside. The drive itself was fantastic. We went through loads of tiny villages where everyone is still excited to see a white person and they run out into the street shouting "hello hello." Later on when we stopped at a tiny shop the locals were bringing children out of their houses to touch my skin through the car window! To say Lombok is laid back would be underestimating it- we frequently came across people in the middle of the road sitting chatting, playing the guitar or in one instance doing push ups. The saddest thing is the amount of rubbish absolutely everywhere. The locals don't seem bothered by it at all and huge piles surround their houses, villages, streams and roads. You see them just discarding things onto the floor and it is upsetting. Especially when you see it all later floating in the sea. I guess you just don't appreciate the beauty of where you live if you have never left it and if there isn't rubbish collections etc it is difficult to know what to do. Eventually we reached the north of the island and the village of Bayan where we had heard there were some nice waterfalls to go to. We eventually found the entrance and got charged double the fee but couldn't really be bothered to argue as it was still only 60p. The area was lovely as we walked through the jungle and there were monkeys in the trees but again the paths were just lined with rubbish to an unbelievable extent. After climbing down and lot of steps, seeing the unremarkable waterfall and then climbing all the way back up agin in the sweltering heat we got back to our jeep and started to panic about finding some petrol to get us back to Sengiggi. We remembered there had been a service station we passed on the way but the road seemed to go on for miles before we got there and of course it was shut...In the end we stopped at the side of the road where the locals all sell litre bottles of fuel and we purchased 4. Of course because we were foreigners the whole village had to come out and help pour it in and have a look at us. We also thought we had been charged the foreigners price of 30p a litre but later on an Indonesian guy we met assured us that was the normal price (as opposed to 20p in the petrol stations!) We eventually got home and had a really nice meal on the beach. The next day we headed back to the Gili islands on our way back to Bali. We decided to try and do it cheaply so instead of arranging a transfer we made our way to the public harbour. As we were on our way there the torrential rain started and by the time we arrived it was unbelievable with rivers running through everywhere and huge pools of water. I went up to the desk and was immediately accosted by about 10 people- I don't think many travellers come that way. I managed to speak to the woman behind the desk and asked when the next boat would be (we had been told it left hourly). "when we have 20 people" she replied. "ok" I said "how many have you got?" "How many of you?" she asked "two" I answered- "yes we need 18 more" was the helpful conclusion. We waited 10 minutes and got accosted a lot more until she said "do you want a private charter to go now?" at 8 quid it seemed like a bargain so she made an announcement over the loudspeaker which probably said something along the lines of "is anyone desperate enough for money to go out in this weather" and a guy came to collect us and showed us to a long wooden boat that they were in the process of bailing out. We jumped in and started the very scary journey across to the island. It was pretty unbelievable and I did actually think a little bit that we could die...the boat was seriously pitching and felt like it was going to capsize with every enormous wave. Our "private" charter also seemed to accommodate 3 locals going to the island so at one point I asked "do these boats ever capsize?" "oh yes' he said "but normally only when they have heavy building materials inside'" I can't say it made me feel a million times better- that only happened when we had our feet back on dry land. Needless to say 2 days later when we left Gili for Bali we chose the safest tourist boat option that even comes with life jackets!

So here we are back in Bali which as I said before is stunning and is definitely somewhere we would love to come to again... tomorrow we fly to Kuala Lumpar for 3 days and then we go to Borneo with my mum!