Hello!!!

It's been so long!

Indonesia was good fun but we didn't see as much of it as we'd hoped for - the end of our Asia tour was looming so we flew from Singapore to Bali in the beginning of May. We stayed in a lively area popular with backpackers for 2 nights before heading off to the Gili Islands - I found Bali a bit intense after Malaysia and Singapore - there were so many windy alleyways crammed with motorbikes and scooters! The party scene in Bali is big and we'd been so relaxed for the past few weeks it was weird finding streets crammed with drunk people again!! The beach wasn't as nice as some others we'd been so but maybe i've become a bit of a beach snob after malaysia and thailand!!! It was good fun there though - we moved on to Gili Trawangan, getting a bus to the port and a 'speed boat' to the island, a very bumpy ride! when we pulled up there were horses / ponys and carts waiting to take people to their accomation - in heinsight we could've walked along the beach front and found loads of reasonable priced places to stay but we didnt know how long we'd be walking so jumped onto one. Everything on the island was on a path set back from the beach front, shops, cafes, bars, restuarants, there's alot more going on there than on the Perhentian Islands. We stayed on Gili T for 10 days, after a couple of days we signed up to do our scuba diving courses, we'd been thinking about doing it for ages and this seemed like a really good place to do it because all the dive centres had pools where you could practice your skills before going into the sea to complete them. The course took five days and included 5 deep sea dives, i can now dive anywhere up to a depth of 18 metres! It's so nice being able to swim along the bottom with the fish and be able to breathe!!! there's definitely another world down there, i felt like nemo! forgot to get an underwater camera again but im definitely going diving in australia - really want to show how gorgeous the coral and fish look when you're down there!!

After Gili T we headed back to Bali - stayed for another 2 nights, it was weird to pack up all of our things for the final time, 13 weeks in Asia had flown by and now me and my travelling buddy Tor were going our separate ways! Me to oz and her to New Zealand. We flew from Bali to KL and a few hours later from KL to Melbourne (a flight we'd already had booked since september 09!)............ can't believe my journey through Asia is done!! I will definitely be going to asia for holidays from now on!

My next blog will be from Australia!!!

P.S. one of the things that slightly tainted Indonesia for me was that on the night we left for Australia i was diagnosed with typhoid - having felt not quite right for the last 3 days we googled the symptoms (and came up with malaria) and got straight to a 24 hour clinic. A couple of injections, 2 blood tests, £250 and one hour later i got the test results - doom! (I had the vaccination at home before i left but it failed me!) everything was crossed not to get stuck in quarantine in Melbourne.....................