It was a lot KUTA the second time around (Kuta Bali Indo)

Ok, so its the second time we've visited here and I must say that seeing it in daylight brinks out a much better side to the place. I suppose also managing to find somewhere to stay also helps. Staying here for 12 days longer than visit one, we hooked back up with the group (Lisa, Mick, Leon and Andy) once more and proceeded in doing a shit load of cool stuff. So much in fact, all I can remember I have separated in sections for your little stomachs to digest. Mental. Anyway, here goes:

Surfing
Yes, we can now surf!! Well, I wouldn't say we will be the next Kelly Slater (lol) or anything but we can actually stand up on a board and ride in a wave.....

Starting our 1st day of wave adventures on a body board (Jo's idea not mine), my lady soon found here feet from her previous childhood experiences whilst I struggled to stay afloat. The morning session went by fast and having only caught one decent wave in, I was eagerly anticipating the afternoon. As I gradually improved we saw some great fun happen, first with Jo actually eating some sand for a change and then by me flying over the top of her on an incoming wave. Awesome. With several good rides now under my belt and with confidence now at its peak, disaster struck! After paddling out way to far to catch a good wave, I nearly lost my life trying to get back in as I got stuck out at sea, I crashed and smashed against every wave coming. My were they big and it was pretty shit scary. Well at least I'm alive and typing.......

Kicking the half sized piece of shit board to the kerb, the next 3 days of surf time were spent on daily decreasing sized long boards. Again, each day we got better and better, as you would expect. By the end of it all and with no major hiccups along the way, we had experienced some great waves, learnt a lot about the ocean and actually started to believe we could film Endless Summer 3. Totally Stoked dude!

Accommodation
No sleeping on the streets this time. However at times, it would have been a quieter option one thinks. For the duration of our stay here in Kuta Bali, we stayed at three varying hostels. The first one was for one night only, just making sure we actually got a bed for the night when we arrived. Not the best but at least it was a room. Second place we stayed for eight nights and it initially seemed really good, I mean a big room, cheapest we could find, ok breakfast, really nice pool etc etc - seemed to good to be true for the money we were paying. Yep it was, but not their fault as we were enclosed by bloody french twats either side of our room shouting at full voice and climbing over our balcony to get across to their friends. As Jo once said, "I fucking hate the French". Couldn't be closer to the truth!! Anyway, we eventually found a cheaper option with three nights left and this place was bliss. Quiet, clean, better pool, amazing staff and an even better breakfast. We really fell on our feet here, shame we didn't find it sooner. They even gave us a lift to the airport at 4am in the morning. Amazing.

Alcohol Consumption
First night here and the main reason behind arriving when we did was because it was old Mick(alob)'s brithday. Starting the night with a few choice drinks in their room, we went for some scram at a local Japanese restaurant called 'Kunti 2'. Very nice food was had and the alcohol continued to flow. From here we went to Chaser's, a pool bar with possibly the best air-con ever. Then came bottomless beer at Sky lounge beer garden and then onto Bounty for the late night fun. Apart from being jumped by a bloke in the club, I'm sure he had a great night because we all did. Eh Leon!!!! Anyway, that was just one of many nights out here so I will at least try and tell you a little something about each venue before this section is over.

Chasers - a firm favourite amongst the group, not only for the pool and the air-con but also the strange choice of house band who in fact despite murdering several songs were in fact quite entertaining. Another reason we visited often was because it was pretty much our local and drinks weren't that expensive. The only negative was on one of last nights here, Jo and I nearly got into a fight with some old Canadian twat trying to be cocky about using the table after us. Honestly.

Corner bar - home of Pro Evo on a big screen. It was always ramo with all sorts of crazy cats from locals to french. Leon got owned here getting beaten four times out of four on Pro Evo, and yes he did cry. Also the scene of a french guy getting punched by a Swedish woman for touching her arse, there was also some stupidly cheap drinks for all tastes and the place for the best chat up line of all time. "If I can do this to a playstation analog stick, just think what I could do to you." Priceless, not even mastercard or carlsberg could do this better.

ESC Skybar lounge & Heineken Beer Garden - any place that sells bottomless beer all night for only 2.50 english pounds is legendary in my book. This place was awesome. More staff than customers to serve up ice cold beer - all you did was hold your empty glass out, no movement necessary! and also the fact they had live music in which Leon actually gatecrashed, all live sports on a big screen and some great pumping tunes. Even Jo was caning the beers by the end of our stay and considering she didn't drink beer 12 days before says it all for me.

Kuta's Legendary Steps - apparently Kuta's most happening place for drinking? Well, not really in my eyes. Nice place to meet people and BYO drink - Jo loved the Cider option! Apart from that it was a bit weird just sat on some steps outside a bottle shop drinking and yeah there were far too many aussies for my liking!!!!!!!!

Bounty - Club time. This was were we always seemed to end our nights. Several layers of a music filled party cake set out as a pirate ship that encased poll dancing, varying music and a fair few regular punch ups! Locals beware, this place was mental. Drinks seemed to actually get cheaper throughout the night? weird.

Anyway I think that is all our main hangouts, to be fair when you can drink as much as you like in one place, you do tend to go back! We did visit other places but they really weren't worth mentioning.

The Drive
Lets hire a car. Okay, cool. Who can drive? Jon says "I can". Everyone else says "cool, we can't". Great!!!!! Cheers guys. Anyway spending the day (10 hours) driving 6 people around in a tank through Bali without maps or any idea how to get to the places we wanted to get to served up quite a fun journey. I almost actually enjoyed it! Setting out towards a place called Dreamland, we managed to drive round the airport twice before finally arriving at our destination a lot later than expected. It really was a bitch to get to and the fact the local drivers are SHIT really didn't help. Honestly if I'm indicating and in the lane to turn right, please don't try and overtake me on my right hand side. I would love to kill you but I just can't afford to. Anyway, yeah dream land well, was not dreamy, in fact apart from the cool surf breaks, it was crap. Next stop Tanah Lot. Surely not that hard to find? yeah right. We spent ages doing loops of the town just nearby obviously knowing what we were doin'. Turn left, no right, straight on. Shit we wanted to go down there. Yep, nice and easy to understand behind the wheel. Anyway we got there in the end and this time it was actually quite cool, a temple submerged in the water and fully accessible. Made for quite a site. By now we were way behind on time so we made a half arsed attempt to go to a hot springs, some dodgy lunch and managed to find possibly the worst terrain to get home. We even nearly went down a ditch reversing down a 1 track dirt road to avoid 3 on coming buses. So much for the scenic route hey Andy!!!!!!! All good fun, some great stories for future conversations. Fun, fun, fun, well the tourists didn't think so!

Food, glorious food
We started well but ended bad. Very bad indeed. A few nice early Indo treats began our stay but after a few dodgy stomachs from local Warungs (cheap restaurants) and we soon decided that maybe a little more money spent would save a lot more time on the toilet!! Anyway, now we have the shoddy cheap places out the way, if you do visit Kuta Bali, not that you will, you must get down to ESC Skybar. Not only are they good for the bottomless beer, but they do amazing food. Probably the best burgers around, massive breakfast wraps and definitely the biggest Club Sandwich I have ever seen. They even had an amazing Lobster tail and Mignon steak surf and turf on offer for 10 quid. Shame they were all sold out when I went to order. Bollocks!!!! A few of the other good places we ate were Kunti 2 - a great Japanese place at not bad prices, MOJO's Mexican - great cheap mexican food with super t-shirts, Warung 96 - Pizza and Lasagna to die for, well not quite as good as mum's lasagna tho. Decisions, decisions, how I hated deciding where to eat when there was so much more great food on offer at crazy prices!!

The Beach
A nice beach, not the best, but certainly a lot better than most in Indo. It was nice to find white sand instead of the usual black muck we had seen for the last week or so! Great for surfing, although the surf schools did kind of take over but you just had to surf at them, they soon moved!! Loads of great waves, cool boards and even some crazy ladies trying to sell you crossbows. Honestly who would buy a crossbow on the beach? I'm sure they are great but not too sure it would make it through customs!!!!!!!!!!!!

We did do loadsa other cool shit whilst we were here but I could go on for hours. It is a great place in my eyes, not so much in Jo's but if you ever do go, be prepared for one hell of a journey and watch the hell out for those bloody scooters flying down Poppies 1 and 2!!!!!!!

The short trip to Senggigi

Right, in our Minivan adventure from Kuta (Lombok), those 4 guys (Leon, Andy, Mick and Lisa) decided to get the boat back to Kuta while we went for a few days in near by Senggigi. A place with apparently amazing sunsets, a nice beach and a fair bit of live music. Well it amazing but it was a hell of a lot better than Kuta (L).

Getting there around 6pm in falling rain, we yet AGAIN struggled to find accommodation, but we ended up staying the night in a little gangsta run establishment named 'Ray's Hotel'. There you go Phil, they even named this place after you, shame there was no purple rain tho!!!!!!!

Yeah pretty knackered from 3 days previous drinking we went out for dinner at Warung BBQ which was pretty sweet, having steak for dinner and discovering the mighty 'I love Cow' t-shirt we then caught a few tracks and a beer at a pub doing live music before heading back for what we thought might be an early night. No chance! Ray's Hotel was right next door to possibly the worst and loudest Karaoke bar ever...... talk about Murder on the dance floor!

Up early or should I say still awake from the night before and we were again looking for new accommodation. At least the breakfast and view were good from Ray's as not much else was!!!!!! Yeah so we rocked up at Raja's Bungalows, let me tell you, so much better here and they even had a funky outdoor bathroom. Sweet!

Catching up on our sleep we awoke around lunchtime. Grabbed some food then went walking around town, over and beyond hills, dodging animals and even getting tanned. Thank god we brought water as man was it hot today. Anyway returning again knackered, we slept once more, chilled out and went out for a great Indo dinner of Nasi Campur and Nasi Goreng. Look those bad boys up and cook away, they were good. Then back to the same place for live music once more. Hopefully once we were done this time, sleep wouldn't be a big issue, thank god, Jo slept like a log.... lazy git!! and I went into reception and watched the Man Utd v Sunderland game in someones front room with a crowd of locals walking in and out. Weird.

Last day here and we just cruised around, found somewhere to watch the Arsenal game later, beached it up and caught possibly the best sunset yet from a cute little temple called Batu Balong. The sky was an amazing red and the volcano and palm tree scene under it just added to the magic. Same dinner, same place and then the same pub for live music and beers before going to find the Arsenal game and watch them smash Blackburn 6-2. great day, great times!!!!!

Up early in the morning and after some strange bargaining techniques from the locals where they went up in price instead of down and we were on our way to getting the ferry back to Kuta (Bali). No shitty speedboat this time guys!!!!!!!

Kuta Lombok - Don't Go There!

Ok so we spent ages getting to Kuta Lombok and in a word was it worth it....... NO! Once there we checked into a place called 'Surfers Inn', it was a really nice room, cheap and we had a swimming pool for the first time in ages. Problem. As we are not surfer dudes (can you tell) we were ignored, discarded and everyone there was so rude because our every other word wasn't 'stoked' or 'sweet'. A bit annoying and I could go on for ages but we did try to make the effort but hey if that's how they want to be then F!@# them!

Deciding to go on a night out a bit pissed off, we again met up with Lisa from the Gili's and made some new friends who crazily enough came from Wimbledon in London. Let me introduce to you Leon, Mick and Andy. I'm sure I have spoken to Leon before for work as he was a recruitment guy from London, small world eh. Anyway we all gelled well, sunk a few beers (even Jo has started now) and listened to the shocking band on offer. At last it felt nice not to be the only non surfers here.

The next morning we walked along the beach, got hassled by the local kids to buy stuff and take their photos.....cheeky little guys. Then we quickly checked out of our place and moved to Matahari's where the guys were staying.

More beers, nicer accommodation and meeting new friends aside, there really was no point to this 3 day adventure as unless you are a surfing god ready to catch waves man, this place is SHIT!

Get me out of here....... even in that small cramped van that you are fitting 6 of us in!!!!!!!

The Gili Islands - Air, Meno and Trawangan

Off to the Gili's... Woohooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well we caught our speedboat, aptly named the Gili Cat, oh how Jo loved that. All I can say is it was a horrible journey to Gili T, such rough seas that I was nearly sick. Man do I hate boat trips!!!!! We did arrive safely though and amongst all the drama and high winds we did make a new friend - Steve from England, a nice guy who we spent most of time on the Islands with.

Searching for accommodation again wasn't easy and after looking for a few hours in the heat we decided to put our bags down at a place called Lisa's Homestay. A cute little place with a nice enough room, weird breakfasts (the norm in Indo) and a landlady who kept a very tight ship. There was also an abundance of noisy yet cute cats that kept Jo entertained for our 6 day stay. They also kept me awake most nights.

It was very strange on the island as there are no means of motorised transport, all push bikes and mainly horse drawn carts. Very romantic apart from the shocking conditions the horses have to endure. Not a nice sight. And very dangerous as the handlers just don't stop!

To be honest we didn't really do that much here, just chilled out on the beach, slept in late and consumed a hell of a lot of alcohol in watering holes such as the Magic Mushroom infused Ruddy's - great T-shirts guys, shame they were so expensive and the Irish bar - always good for sport and dancing. When a vodka and coke is a cheaper than a regular coke, its hard not to drink. Mix all this in with these awesome little movie booths where we watched a fair few films whilst being waited on hand and foot..... yes I will have another Bintang mate! And you pretty much get a fair reflection of our nights here.

Food was pretty good too but one of the best places to eat on our trip and definitely worth a mention was Scallywags. Run by a brummy the food was amazing and we mean it. Tuna steaks, Swordfish, Salad Buffets, Ice-creams, desserts, anything. You name it, they cook it and every time it was so good we couldn't resist going back. They even proclaimed to be better chef's than Gordon Ramsey.... not too sure but hey it was good.

During our stay we again met up with a guy, Alex, who we met in KL and made a new friend in the shape of a Canadian girl called Lisa. All good guys and moving round the island in a big group seemed better than just the two of us. Having great times we did venture out on a boat trip for the day round all the Islands, again ace snorkelling, views and swimming and a truly life changing experience. I mean where else can you get up close to and swim with Turtles whilst seconds later being chased by a sea snake??????

Anyway after lazing around for far too long and the need for dry land once more, we set sail with Lisa to go to a place called Kuta. Not the same one from Bali but this time in Lombok. Hopefully we will find somewhere to stay this time but who knows??