Blog 30 - end of Bali

Tuesday evening I got home and there was nobody there, so I reorganized my pic's, played some guitar and tried to write my Lombok-blog.

The next morning I went for a early morning surf, after having said goodbye to Joost, who was going ona holiday with hiss brother and a friend. I was happy to be surfing again (at Tugu) and had a nice session and a banana pancake J

Later that day I went to Kuta to buy some dvd's for my sis (4th and 5th season of Grey's anatomy) and a little dress for my niece Brecht. Since I was quite tired, I skipped an afternoon surf and went to bed early to be able to have a surf in the morning, as I did. I started out at Tugu, but changed beaches after two hours and had a go at Echo beach as well. In the afternoon I had lunch and another surf with Keizo, a Japanese guy. I met Keizo in the bus back to Canggu, where I was sitting next to him. Anyway, the surf was great! I had a really nice session.

Another early night and an early morning surf with Pete. When I got home, I didn't feel to well, my ear hurt, so no more surf that day, but I did watch some dvd's and had dinner with Marieke, on the couch, watching a movie.. just being a couch potato for once J

The next day I got up early, had brekky, but since my ear still hurt, so I went back to bad and went to yoga instead (later that morning), had another go in Kuta and chilled out on the couch again in the evening.

On Sunday I went to yoga with Marieke and decided to go to Ubud afterwards. It's quite a drive on the moternike to Kuta and it took me about an hour and a half. First I went to the monkey forest (some kind of apenheul), which was pretty funny (I just love monkeys). There were hypes of baby monkeys and they were the cutest! Some shopping later on… I do have to say I still do not like bargaining. You end up finding yourself winding up over 30 eurocents (5000 rps), which is like nothing for us, butt a lot of money for the locals. It's just not worth the hassle. On the other hand, they start of with a 'first price' that is at least 3 times as high as the price you can pay if you're good at bargaining, so… somehow they are still making money if you pay a third of what they're asking, so.. you kind of should bargain, or they'll just laugh at you (in silence and with a lot of money in their pocket). I had a really nice cappuccino and some fried banana with ice cream (what a life), gave my sis a ring and decided to head back to Canggu for the night.

On Monday I was still a bit under the weather and, since it was one of my last days in Bali, I decided it was time to spoil myself for a bit, so I went to the spa and had a massage, a wrap, a hair treatment and all. For 3,5 hrs I just relaxed and that fest quite good actually. Beforehand I did have some doubt about the hair treatment, but it actually really made my hair shiny again and the head massage was to die for… like a goddess in Bali… In the evening I went to Tanah Lot, a very famous temple in Bali. I met up with Josine and Bas (a couple also staying at the homestay) and afterwards we had a really nice dinner together.

On Tuesday, the day before leaving, I finally went to Uluwatu, a very well known, popular and one of the best surf spots in the world. Bas, Josine, Marieke and I left at 5.30 am and it took us about an hour to get there. The tide was coming in and the waves didn't look to scary, so I decided to go in. It was pretty crowded, but I did manage to catch a couple of waves and a photographer did take a picture of me beingon a wave.Sadly only one, just in my bottom turn and not the rest of the wave, but hey, still proof that I did surf Uluwatu J After Uluwatu we went to check Impossible (another wave) but that didn't really go of. Bas and I did surf the break next to it and we all chilled out till lunchtime. We had lunch in a really nice Mexican restaurant and headed home afterwards. I did have another surf that day and all surfed out I did sleep very well that night…

My last day I had an early morning surf and breakfast at Echo Beach, tried to pack my bags, picked up my clean laundry, had lunch with Freek (at the home stay) and had one more surf at Tugu with Freek (turned out to be a really good session) before leaving. Dinner at Mandeira's with Jelle (who was sitting there having a beer), Keizo (who just had a surf as well) and Freek.

As I got back home, the taxi was already waiting (an hour early), but I was not quite ready yet.. Shower, packing, saying goodbye's…

At the airport everything was fine. I left my guitar in Bali for the orphans and had 20.9 kg of luggage… No worries… back to Oz…. and flying to Fiji next…