bali or bust

Had a great nights sleep in our giant bed. Very quiet location with only the sounds of birds and very little traffic noise. Breakfeast at the garah biru restarant next to hotel. Had awesome banana pancakes and jen some eggs and tomato. Jen has posted some pics. Very cool place. Back to the room before we head out to ubud town. Saw Gede (gidday) and sorted some stuff we are going to do and booked my volcano hike for monday morning. 2am pick up to reach the base of mountain. Then a 2 hour hike for a sunrise view. Cant wait.
Walked into ubud which took about 20 minutes. Spent the first half of trip dodging traffic as there is no footpath to walk on. Once we hit the main road it was footpath which had bit out of it everywhere. You need to keep your eye on where you are walking or you could easily trip over. Ubud is geared towards tourists. Traffic was at a standstill for most of the time as locals and tourists jockeyed for position on the narrow main street. Shops on the main street are for tourists and i dont think many locals would shop in them.
Jen and i went down an alley way and stumbled onto a large temple tucked away from the noise of the main street. Ahhh some quiet.

Then stopped at a bar for a cool drink and some people watching.

Had a weird experience while people watching. A guy stopped in front of us with a paper bag with holes in it. He made eye contact and reach into the bag. To jen and my horror he pulled out a baby owl. Its little eyes looked at us with sadness. Jen fired up. THAT SHOULD BE FREE. Then the guy bolted quick smart. Would have liked to get ot off him. Just goes to show there are dickheads all over the world.
Back to the hustle and we reached the local market which is a maze of narrow lanes selling everything and anything you could imagine. What is the fascination with giant penis bottle openers? Jen made her first purchase to break the ice. We had a look around and decided we will hit them in a few days.
Next stop was the bali fish spa. Here you get to put your feet in giant fish tanks and let fish suck dead skin from your feet. This is not as crazy as you think and very enjoyable. A lovely young girl washed down our feet then we had 20 minutes of small fish chowing down on our feet. After that 5 minutes of out feet having electrical currents pumped through them. Then a machine foot massage. Our feet felt great. AWESOME!

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We are here at last. We are both sitting back enjoying a bintang as planned.
Flight out of hervey bay was all good. Made our way through the brisbane airport and onto our virgin flight to bali. We feel the travel gods may be with us already. when i booked our tickets with virgin i chose not to pay for meals and drinks, being a tight arse, however as the meals came out i heard the words. What meal would you like mr green? I didnt pay for meals i said. Well you are listed here as meals for mr and mrs green. Does that include drinks? Yes. Bring it on! Good start to our holiday.
Flight was quick compared to some of the marathons we have done in the past. 6 hours in the air and we are in bali. Got our luggage and through customs in no time. There waiting in the pick up room was a sea people holding up names on bits of paper yelling out. Welcome to Bali! Jen spotted the andrew green sign we gave a nod to our guy and we were off. Some guy tried to grab my bag to carry. This is scam they will try by offering to carry your bag then hitting you up some crazy price. I am on to you buddy. Our driver, jen and i cant remember his name, set off into the traffic. For anyone who has been to south east asia they will know the deal with driving. Lots of beeping of horns and near misses. Jen and i are ok with this now and sat back and enjoyed the scenery. The area around the airport was not very appealing, however, as we made our way to ubud the buildings got smaller and more residential and rural.
Made it to our hotel the gajah biru in ubud. We were met by gede, pronounced gidday easy to remember, and he took us to our lovely room overlooking a jungle setting with a massive king size bed room. Lovely place. We are going to enjoy our week here. By now we were stuffed so we ordered some food, nasi goreng, tikka masala, had it delivered to our room cracked open a bintang and enjoyed our new surroundings. Early night tonight and wake uo tomorrow bright eyed and bushey tailed.

Well the planning and waiting is over. Just getting a few things sorted today and will be off to Bali tomorrow morning. Next blog will be from Bali.

Countdown has begun for our trip to Bali. Fly out on 9th March 2017 arriving in Bali the same day. Am looking forward to a trip which I can arrive at the same day as I leave. We will be flying out of Hervey Bay at 6.40am. 50 minutes later we arrive in Brisbane then a 10.10am flight to Bali. We arrive in Bali 2.30pm local time. The plan is to be sitting down having a beer in Ubud by 4.30pm local time. A week in Ubud and then a week in Sanur. Look forward to sharing our experiences.