I know some of you have been ITCHING for a new update... so I’m going to bless you with not one, but two! Mainly because one of our days was so special we feel it deserves its own entry.

So our first few days in Legian/Kuta (they’re very close together and we kind of flitted between the two, not knowing where Legian ended and Kuta began) were kind of lazy. We felt a bit overwhelmed when we first arrived at the number of people trying to sell you products from the hundreds of stalls on every street, or food & drinks from the hundreds of bars & restaurants, and number of people walking (very slowly) on the very narrow pavements aside the extremely busy roads. We wondered why no one seemed like they had a destination ahead and found it frustrating trying to get where we wanted to be while risking our lives stepping into the roads to overtake the dawdlers. By day two we had completely sunk into the Balinese way of life. There was no rushing to be somewhere to do anything. We got up when we wanted, ate when we were hungry and did “things” when we felt like it. We ventured into Kuta’s busy street of night life and listened to live music and danced till the early hours. We had a few trips to the beach, and our favourite day here was when... after many years of me saying I’d like to give it a go... we finally had a surfing lesson! We had met a surfing instructor in a bar on our first night out who offered us a lesson for next to nothing, so him and his friend took us out at about 4pm when the crazy huge waves had settled enough for beginners to live another day, and we surfed till just before the sunset, which we then sat and watched on the beach. We both really enjoyed it and managed to stand up many times... sometimes for as long as about 5 seconds (are you proud Uncle Glyn?!)

We’ve had some really great food here too. One of our favourites was two Balinese dishes we opted for in an attempt to be cultural, which turned out to be so delicious. Mine was wrapped in a banana leaf and Gaby’s was served on one, and consisted of various meats, rice & vegetables in Balinese spices all mixed together, and Gaby’s was very similar but in more of a curry form... photos to follow. We also really enjoyed a Thai restaurant that was just a couple of doors down from our hotel, and it was here that we made friends with a single traveller from Canada called Kevin (great name, hey Dad?!) who we invited to join us the following day for his last day in Bali. More on that in the next episode coming to you in just a jiffy!