A rocking Christmas and start to the New Year in Bali!!!! We celebrated Christmas staying at the Hard Rock Hotel, situated in Kuta. The hotel had everything to make it an extra special festive period. (Big thanks for our parents for arranging the hotel for Christmas) We arrived in Bali on the 23rd of Dec and spent five days at the resort. It was the first time we had both been away from home over Christmas, so we made sure we kept ourselves busy so we didn't miss everyone back home too much. Highlights include: • Chilling out and playing pool basketball at the awesome Pool area • Recording an album in the Hard Rock recording studio • Chilling out in the room watching MTV and other satalite channels we have missed over the last couple of months • The Hard Rock Hotel Bar! There was a live band every night and sometimes sexy ladies. • The Hard Rock Spa: relaxation at its finest. Throughout the day we occasionally popped outside of the resort to explore the streets of Kuta, checking out the surfer shops, restaurants and local clubs. Kuta is a costal area of the island notoriously overcrowded with surfer dudes, pursuing awesome waves and crazy nightlife. The town is basically built on tourism, filled with hotels, bars, clubs and surfer shops. However since the terrorist attacks in October there has been a massive drop in the level of tourism here, especially over this Christmas period. This is very sad to see for the community. The locals depend on this tourism and without they are struggling. Strolling throughout the town throughout the day and night we get asked to enter every empty shop we walk past by desperate shop owners and I have lost count of how many times I have been asked if I wanna taxi ride! Me and Brides are hot property here! Not just on the dancefloor. The Balinese people are great. Such friendly and happy folk, always up for a good time. They are also very beautiful people! Great vibe all-round. After the Hard Rock stay we settled in to a much cheaper but nice and chilled resort entitled the AP Inn, it had an ok room, a big pool with a massive outdoor TV. On the Thursday before New Years we went on a surfer for beginners course! Which was cool. We didn't feel cool though. Surfing with the biggest and foamiest surf boards on the planet swhile everyone else had small, dynamic looking boards. But hey, you gotta start somewhere. However i didnt help my cause when i managed to hit a hot blonde girl on the head with my board. Brides and I picked it up eventually, we managed to stand up on the thing, but it is much harder then it looks. The next day the same guy who worked at the 'learn to surf' company offered to take us on a trip to see other parts of the island away from Kuta! We ended up visiting Uluwatu to see massive cliffs of the southern coast of the island and then to ..... (I forgot) to do some watersports! We had a blast, jet skiing, paragliding and getting a ride on a fly boat, which is the same concept as the banana boat but flies about in the wind! New Years We celebrated the turn of the year on the beach with loads of locals, although there wasn't an official countdown! Think there way too cool for that! It was so crazy, the beach and streets we filled with people. Most of the clubs are tailored for tourism and are therefore too expensive for locals to enter. But the locals don't complain! They just rock out the streets. We hit the clubs later on to celebrate into the early morning drinking 'Arak attacks' and 'Jungle juice'! Both of these drinks are made in Bali and not found anywhere else (I don't think). They are strong, tasty and cost less then one pound! The perfect alcoholic beverage!! The first day of the New Year was spent recovering from the night before! The next two days however we got the cultural thing down and went off to explore Bali on two day trips, so we didn't get what the surfers call: 'Kuta Madness'. 1st day trip Monkey Forest & Tanah Lot Sunset Our first stop on the trip was to Mengwi Temple! Its 1634 years old and looked it! The next step was the monkey forest, set in a sacred forest located in a small village entitled Alas Kedaton. Within the forest there was a temple and a walkway which we were led around to check out the hundreds of monkeys hovering around ready to snatch food from you. Great selection of monkey! From little babies to monkeys that had beards and looked wise! The last stop of the day was to the Tanah Lot Temple! Now that was a temple! Set 200m meters offshore on top of a lava rock. It looked like the coast at the end of the Goonies movie! We loved the vibe and even got to drink holy water that is said to keep you young! The views from round the rocky cliffs were awesome, we sat and chilled on a cliff top watching surfers tackling the big waves hitting the coast. 2nd day trip Kintamani Lake & Volcano We started the day watching a Barong and Keris Dance! Which is very famous and colourful dance performed in Bali. We then went on to check out villages and their local craftsman ship, including: • Celuk village famous for its filigree silver and gold works • Mad village famous for woodcarving • And another village that had painting etc They all showcased awesome craftsmanship and we were given tours and talks about each individual craft. Throughout the day we also passed through a number of smaller villages and thousands and thousands of rice fields! Rice plantations our big out here and it was a pleasure to see local farmers at work. Finally we traveled to Kintamani to get a view of the volcano, unfortunately it was cloudy and we couldn't see a thing! The end! The last couple of days we are chilling in kuta, before we head off to Australia!! Sorry if this diary entry has got less and less descriptive but the humidity here is killing me, feel like I have been writing for hours! Oh well maybe an 'arak attack' will get me going again! See ya