Hi folks

For our last night in Lombok we headed to Kuta, we took the very scenic rural route, passing numerous bright green padi fields, acres of sweetcorn and chili crops, not to mention peanut plantations, luckily the natives were friendly and pointed us in the right direction a number of times, not that we were lost, just no road signs!

We arrived in the small yet compact Kuta village in good time and decided to stay over in the Surfers Inn, nice room opposite the large sandy beach with rollers breaking in the distance; our room was just the job and settled in with a Bintang beer and bathe in the small swimming pool – ‘twas a steaming hot day. We strolled through the small village street, which was a little commercialised, and to a local cafe with free Internet, sadly they had a virus in their system and Keith's laptop wouldn't allow us to log-on. We were followed and pestered by the local children begging us to buy their shell and bead bracelets, somehow they just couldn't take no for an answer, with this in mind we decided to leave this surfing paradise and head for Bali the next day.

We set off for the port at Lembar in Lombok for the Bali ferry, arrived by 10.45am and within an hour we were on our way, the crossing was reasonably smooth, the weather at times in the last few days had occasionally been overcast and not as warm as we had become accustomed to, must have been down in the mid 20's, but all that changed on board back into the mid 30's as we approached Bali, at around 3.45pm we disembarked at pretty Padangbai harbour. The town was small and thankfully not too busy, it is the end of the season for holiday makers in Indonesia, the rainy season will soon be upon the islands.

We found digs in the harbour area, the room was fab overlooking the port, we had the most enormous 7' bed and large French doors that opened up to a large tiled terrace with a great view of the colourful fishing boats and the small street eating places, a great spot.  Sadly we didn't take into account the fact that the ferries ran throughout the night, blasting their horns as they approached the dock, so after a sleepless night decided to move on and not stay over for a second night.

The next day didn't start well, our first encounter with a downpour and had to don our wet weather gear, luckily this cleared up a couple of hours later as we reached our destination, the township of Senur. We were surprised how large the town was and how commercialised it had become and not as I imagined Bali to be. The one saving grace was a great beach, as we strolled along I spied a snake slithering out of the sea - hmmm - no swimming here then. (Bali-bad). Next day we left in a hurry and took the main road towards Amlapuri, Kintamani and finishing our ride in Toyah Bunka. The big volcano had erupted many years ago leaving an enormous caldera, the setting was as you can image, a serenely calm lake surrounded by the sharp mountainous crater edges and a newer smaller volcano to one side, a delightful spot, shame our accommodation didn't come up to scratch, the Lonely Planet Guide has a lot to answer for. They recommended the Lakeside Cottages but on closer inspection was rather shabby and could do with a good makeover. Not a lot to do there in the early dark evenings, sadly our satellite TV didn't work and the "hot spring" pool was void of water, disappointing. Still by next day we were away towards Lovina, en-route we had to stop at a set of traffic lights and a guy on a scooter handed us a card showing accommodation on the beach, he requested that we follow him - 10 minutes later we pulled into the SRI Homestay - beautiful. Sitting right on the dark soft sandy volcanic beach were around 10 lovely cottages. Hot water showers, mosquito net and a TV that actually worked plus a great restaurant that served ice cold beer, a boon as the weather had reverted to the mid 30's again. So together with the warm Bali Sea, so inviting, this place is heaven on earth and more than made up for our overnight experience in Sanur. Time is now getting short for us but we just had to have a two night stopover, the local folk were so pleasant and we made friends with a young man called Bobby, he invited us to join him and his family plus all the villagers for miles around, to a ceremony at his temple to be followed with Barong dancing. Barong is probably the most well-known dance. It is a story telling dance, narrating the fight between good and evil. This dance is the classic example of Balinese way of acting out mythology, resulting in myth and history being blended into one reality. Very exciting to watch.

With only three and a half days to go we had to head towards Kuta - the town where the Bali bombs went off a few years back. Very busy here, but has a fabulously long soft golden sandy beach, we were able to buy Bintang beer and watch the rollers crash in and the wonderful sunset in the balmy evening. We were lucky and found some great digs, just a few bungalows at a reasonable price and very private away from the hustle and bustle , we can even get the good old BBC news, our first in 8 weeks, and the pool is gloriously warm, shall be sad to leave this accommodation, but will return here next year.

The one experience we didn't expect to have here was an "earthquake", our last full day here and at around 10ish this morning the earth moved, I thought it was a large truck passing by, but quickly realised that there wasn't enough room for one to pass our accommodation, I shot out of our room to find more of the guests standing well away from the buildings, up the road I saw some guests hanging on to the outside of their Juliette balcony in case the building collapsed, then we had a second tremor. The epicentre had been at Nusa Dua just south of us and was an 6.8 quake, some people there were injured and buildings damaged. We also had an aftershock this afternoon - we hope that it will be a peaceful night, but I can't see many of the very frightened locals or tourists getting a good night’s sleep!

We have put the bike to bed today and arranged our lift to Dempasar Airport tomorrow afternoon. It will be time to say bye-bye Bali, it has been a most enjoyable and enlightening trip especially to the third world countries that we have passed through, we look forward to our return home on Saturday.

Hope you have enjoyed our travels.

Have a great day

Ellen x