Indonesia is made up of thousands of islands so deciding where to go was tricky. However, our decision was made easier by the lack of reliable transport to anywhere except Java and Bali - our two least preferable islands in Indonesia! The island that we liked the look of takes 3 days to get there and 3 days to get back and considering we only have 2 weeks in Indonesia we had to rule that out! We had heard a lot of bad things about certain places in Bali such as the rubbish filled beaches and the Aussie party towns so we chose carefully where we wanted to go. After seeing town life in Ubud we decided to head for a small island just off of Bali called Nusa Lembongan which the guide book describes as "the Bali most people come to see but never find".

First things first - the boat trip. It was the weirdest boat I had ever seen with what I can only describe as stabilisers on either side. There is a photo of it In the albums. It parked itself offshore so we had to wade in to meet it with our backpacks over our head to stop them getting wet! (I say we, Bryan can take credit for that as I can barely lift mine off the ground)! The seats were just planks of wood which is uncomfortable for an hour and a half boat journey but we're no strangers to roughing it. We met an English couple on the boat who have done almost the same trip as us but in reverse. They started in South America and are ending in Thailand so we swapped stories and advice. However, about half an hour into the journey the sea became really choppy. I soon realised why the boat needed stabilisers! I've never been one of those people who get car sick/sea sick but this journey was horrible. Fortunately I wasn't sick but I spent the whole journey thinking that I was going to be. I've never been happier to get on dry land.

The island is quite small but not small enough to walk everywhere. Unfortunately the beach which our accommodation was in was quite shingly and not great. There were some other nice beaches but the only way to get to them was to pay a fortune for a taxi boat or hire a scooter. Easy decision! Neither of us have ever driven a scooter before so it was interesting trying to drive it out of the shop! No mirrors, the speedo didn't work and one of the brakes was a bit dodgy. This cost us £3 for the day including a full tank of petrol so you get what you pay for I suppose! I can assure you though (mum) it was the best place to learn to ride a scooter. There are no cars around just the occasional scooter and the roads are more like dirt tracks. It was actually really fun. We scooted around the island, visited some really nice empty beaches and even crossed a (slightly dodgy) bridge over to the neighbouring island. This island was mostly locals who earn their keep by fishing and collecting seaweed. We did stumble across a hidden retreat up in the cliffs with amazing looking thatch bungalows on stilts. This is a place for serious surfers and we had a drink watching the surfers tackle the enormous waves.

There wasn't a great choice of places to eat being a small island. The food was average and overpriced but it was great to eat in restaurants right on the beach overlooking the sea. Bryan, who has been disappointed so far by the lack of spiciness in Indonesian curries, ordered a spicy curry one night. He made a point of saying to the waiter to make it as hot as it comes. The waiter then wrote down spicy and underlined it in his notepad. When it turned up there was the curry in a bowl and then a separate bowl full of raw chopped chillies. Bryan said "shall I just do the manly thing?" and I told him to go for it...so he tipped them all in! I don't think he realised the curry was probably already quite spicy before he put them in. The look on his face when he ate his first mouthful was priceless! It nearly blew his head off! He didn't want to look stupid by asking for a spicy curry and not being able to eat it so he pushed himself to eat it and to his credit he managed to finish it all apart from a couple of chillies left at the end. I don't think he enjoyed it though!

We were dreading the boat trip back to the mainland but it was actually a lot better. We managed to get a private boat which still looked the same but it had padded seats this time. I don't know if it was because it was a better boat or if the sea was calmer but I didn't feel too bad on this one. There was a little boy who thought otherwise because he threw up all over the boat!