Day 132 Bangkok - Bali

We woke up at 2:45am and headed downstairs to our awaiting taxi. The journey to the airport was about 45 minutes long and was the first time we have had private transportation in months. Bangkok airport looks much like Heathrow’s Terminal 5 and checking in would have been pretty simple, except our bags were well over the 15kg limit. The guy at check-in was really nice because despite a quick rearrangement between our hand luggage and rucksacks we were still well over but he checked our bags in anyway. The flight to Bali was really good, quiet and we both had a row between us, allowing us to get a little shut eye before arriving in Denpassar, Bali. Baggage collection was really quick and we were outside booking a taxi to Kuta in no time. The taxi driver dropped us off at what is known as Bemo corner, this meant for a long walk in the scorching sun with our overweight bags to Poppies II, which is where all the backpacker Guesthouses are. I decided to do a scouting mission instead of us both trapsing around with our bags looking at guesthouses. This didn’t prove that successful unfortunately, as I think I looked at too many and then couldn’t make a decision – I think the 38˚C heat was getting to me. Somehow we managed to flook in finding possibly the cheapest and skankiest place in Kuta but it will do us fine. Having caught up on a little sleep, we went for a walk to buy some lunch and check out Kuta’s Beach. Looking around, we also managed to find a reasonable price for our trip to the Gili Islands the following day. The beach in Kuta was lovely but too toursity with a constant barrage of “Mr, Mr, cold drink” “massage, massage” “taxi, taxi, transport” “mushroom, mushroom” from the Balinese people. Whilst on the beach we witnessed a big Hindu parade, which was in honour of Silent Day in a few days time, another reason to leave Bali slightly early, as everything on Bali shuts down on Silent Day. After having a late lunch, we went back onto the beach to watch the sunset. The beach was absolutely crammed still because of the ceremonies that had just happened and a lot of people (not sure if they were tourists or locals), kept on coming over and asking to have their picture taken with us. I hope this means we’re on someone’s mantle piece somewhere. After sunset and something cheap for dinner, we went into one of the many bars Kuta and watched Chelsea vs West Ham. The game didn’t finish until 1 in the morning, which wasn’t good as we had to be up at 5:30am to begin our 13 hour journey to the Gilli’s.