As you can see in my first flight itinerary I was not scheduled to go to Singapore or Bali. So the story goes back a few weeks when my mother was in desperate need of a holiday and as two of her daughters were already in The East, the family had already travelled in Thailand, Japan and China and Australia and New Zealand were too cold; I suggested Indonesia with mom to quickly respond I have ALWAYS wanted to go to Bali. And I have been wanted to go to Indonesia after constantly hearing about the friendliness and openness of the Indo's. So a few flight searches later she got cheap Air Asia tickets to Kuala Lumpur and then el cheapo's onto Bali. So unfortunately for Ellice whom I had planned to stay with a few weeks I took up the opportunity of having this family holiday in Bali.

Although I had wanted to travel in Indonesia I had not wanted to go to Bali. I was very weary of the island and instead of conjuring up white beaches lined with coconuts, in my mind I could only picture drunken Australians in Bintang singlets mixing with equally drunken English beer bellied lager louts on a quest to hail the moped wielding Balinese prostitutes. However I was pleasantly surprised! Yes Kuta is a hell hole much like Falaraki, Malia, Ayan Napa, Benidorm and Lloret del Mar or Phuket and Pataya. But not all of the island is like that of course and it is very contained in South Bali thus very easy to get away from. However Mom had the first few days in South Bali booked up until we found our feet, so we spent a couple days in Seminyak which is an expat area and then onto Tenjang Benoa which was equally bad. Mediorce restaurants serving a mish-mash of Italian, Russian, Chinese and pub favourites in endless menus, taxis constantly hooted to get your attention while touts try to rope you in to overpriced tours. They are the same EVERYWHERE. Just like McDonalds, Hilton Hotels and Disneyland's. You know what you're going to expect.

The first few days really wasn't much of a holiday at all. We spent the first couple days dodging the frantic traffic in Kuta while avoiding creepy men and then in Benoa I couldn't even swim in the sea! That resort is overrun with Chinese tourists who seem to have be drawn their because of the excessive hotel developments and water sport activities. So because of the hundreds of damn, noisy jet-skies it wasn't safe to swim in the water so they put a small circle net around where it was designated to swim. I was not happy. It seemed like we had one problem after another. Sarah had forgotten to renew her visa for China so had to fly to Jakarta to the embassy at some point which needed to be dealt with and then the next day she was bitten by a feral monkey resulting in a hospital visit and starting a course of anti-rabies vaccinations. This means that I'm now the last one of my sisters to not have a rabies scare (Lara's cat bite in Egypt was first incident).

Luckily mom had only booked up the first couple days and let me plan the rest of the trip. I spent the next few days on the phone calling every accommodation directory service for the islands surrounding Bali and Lombok however we came during school holidays and at the height of the busy season so everything was fully booked. I wanted desperately to get out to the Gili Islands however it seemed all of the hotels I could get hold of were fully booked and if it were just me I would have taken a boat and found a hammock on the beach but travelling with sisters that need hot showers and their own bathrooms puts reins on ideas like that. However I did get a cheap hotel up in Lovina 5 hours on the north coast over the central mountains. We hired a taxi driver, Kumong who later became a very good friend spending all of our days travelling with him and moved away from all the hoo-ha, palaver, hassle and riffraff of South Bali.

Lovina was lovely, not too quiet, not too busy, everyone loved it. We took a sunrise dolphin trip and went out to hot springs with some guys we hired for the day to ride us round on motorbikes. There is nothing comparable to the feeling of being on the back of a motorbike with the muggy, salty, hot air blowing in your face while riding along side paddy fields to your left with the ocean on your right.

We spent a night in Ubud which has been made famous by the book and upcoming movie Eat, Pray, Love. Which basically follows the story of a middle aged divorced American women's mid-life crisis gap year ending in Ubud, Bali. Thus the place is full with its full share of yoga obsessed middle aged women seeking enlightenment and searching for the meaning of happiness. If they weren't doing yoga they seemed to be setting up designer boutiques, organic stores or health food cafes. Ubud had its fair share of men on a slightly similar quest resulting in a fairly cool town but full of greying nomads.

Ubud was over touristy, over priced and aging. Although we did see an enticing typical Balinese dance performance, you'll have to YouTube Balinese dancing as I can't even describe it, it was so weird. My best description would be: The eerie sound of the gamelan played by a chorus of 20 men played methodically while the meticulous dancer's eyes dotted around the room frantically while elegantly twisting her hands to the chimes of the bells. Although this is all staged authenticity for the tourists there are plenty of instances where you can see dances, celebrations and parades of every corner. It seems that wherever you go you will be sure to encounter a festival or religious ceremony.

Balinese famous tolerance, hospitableness and friendliness, I think can be linked to the fact that it is the last Hindu island in Indonesia which is the largest Muslim country. However both religions are greatly toned down and not as extreme as in India or the Middle East. For instance Balinese Hindi worship doesn't involve the caste system nor arranged or child marriages. Likewise with Indonesian Islam, the women are not segregated or required to wear head scarves or burkes. It seems that they have included the best elements of the religions and left out the outdated and inhumane parts.

The last weekend was somewhat rushed. I had managed to get us a booking at a hotel on an island of the coast of Bali called Nusa Lembongan. We took an hour long speed boat which felt like an exhilarating fair group ride as we bounded over the ocean swells bouncing off our seats. The island was idyllic. Unfortunately we only had one night there but it was the stuff out of movies and honeymoon brochures. We headed back to Ubud on my last day when everyone else would stay on. I frantically packed and repacked my bags deciding what I wanted mom to take back to England and did some last minute shopping in the market and picked up something for Ellice. Kumong drove me to the airport and said a sad goodbye to him as he had been such a big part of our trip.

I hooked up with an Australian guy at the airport who was also heading to Manly in Sydney and decided to travel together. Luckily he was there to tell me about the £10 airport departure tax which I had to exit out of security to go back outside to the ATM. Thankfully he waited inside with my bags while I rushed off back outside and jumped the 100 man line and got back to him. I bought him a beer to thank him because I would not made that flight if it wasn't for him.

We caught the train and the ferry in the crisp morning air in Sydney. Ellice was there to meet me and the Aussie and I parted ways. So thank you Dustin who I will never see again but spent 12 hours of my life chatting with. Travelling can be very funny business with so many instant connections and even more instant goodbyes. So many people I meet and think hmmm what nice people and then never to see again. I wonder how many people have ever felt the same way about me.

My time with Ellice was short and sweet like usual. We had a lovely Mexican dinner the first night and a Pan-Am dinner the next. We spent our last night together in a new tequila bar called Miss Marley's which I'm sure will soon be on the best tequila bars in the world list. We spent the rest of our time enjoying each others company having lovely breakfasts on the seafront, shopping and watching movies. It was so homely, just like being back in Torquay. We parted ways again and I promised her I would collect her from the airport when (IF) she gets back to England.

So the unexpected detour went incredibly well, my sisters and I got on better than expected, I handled my mother who was on a super, happy, extremely excitable holiday mode which can get very tiring and I saw a little snippet of Indonesia. I now leave the Southern and Eastern hemisphere to move on to visit to my Grampa's in California and then a month in Colombia to spend a little time with just me. With all the flitting and flying this where and that to see friends and relatives I think I need some time for myself now!