Tata bali xx

We have been disgusting with regards to updating the blog. We are currently sitting on the floor in Bali airport just chilling, you know, in true African style. Myself and Lindsay are now officially the biggest freaks in the place because we have not only set up camp outside a duty free shop where there is a hamster offering massages to every passer by but we are now the proud owners of neck pillows. I think mine will get used more as an accessory than for its actual purpose. I am not joking, an Australian just came past with a small suitcase attached to a leash, and his son was riding on it. They never fail to entertain.

Now lets rewind to Gili Air. The most amazing place in the world, Linds and myself are seriously considering running away, buying a plot of land and opening a little bar on the beachfront. Our time on the island was spent lounging about on the beach, riding bicycles and soaking up all the sunshine. We also went diving, definitely a highlight for all of us. Lindsay’s friend Nick is a diving instructor working on the island and he took us. Had such a great time hanging out with him and hearing all his stories about the Island and diving in general. So we went for our intro dive, we watched 2 videos that we are pretty sure scares people into never wanting to go ankle deep into the sea, let alone go for a dive. We then had some paper work to fill out and after that the fun began. In between Brandon not fitting his bintang beer boep into his wetsuit and Stephan putting his on the wrong way round TWICE we were kept entertained. We were taught how to flush our masks, how to adjust our buoyancy and what to do incase our regulator came out. After lunch our new skills were put to the test. I was extremely nervous and Nicks friend who came with to assist him on the dive needed to calm me down and help me slow my breathing. After getting over the claustrophobic feeling of the tank being strapped to my back, I had time to just take in everything I was seeing. It was such an amazing sight and we were all extremely chuffed when we saw 3 massive turtles sleeping on a reef. We were able to get so close to the fish and coral reefs, It was just breathtaking. We also saw lion fish and all sorts of other things down there. The boys ran out of oxygen before us so we got a little more dive time than they did.

Linds and Nick before the dive

Our last full day on the island was such a typical holiday sun, sand and a lot of laughs. We also managed to ride our bikes around the island, it sounds very chilled and laid back, but hiring them was actually very difficult, we all had to hire bikes from different places as the island was very busy. Lindsay definitely had the coolest bike, baby seat on the back included. Unfortunately there were no small children wondering the streets for us to “surprise babysit” so Lindsays bag got shotgun instead.

Linds and Sam 

After our little bike ride round the island we found an awesome restaurant on the beach where we just chilled out and enjoyed each other’s company. One thing we found extremely entertaining throughout the duration of our stay on both Islands was watching real chinas snorkeling in the shallows with lifejackets, you know, incase they drown in the 30cm water without any waves, but im pretty sure I got more laughs from the others when I decided to rent a mask and snorkel and go on my own underwater adventure. I was overjoyed when Linds decided to join me after I kept saying how many fish there were. We actually had such a stunning time and even saw our first stingray. During all the excitement we managed to develop our own language by speaking and screaming into the snorkel. This language was accompanied by violent pointing and splashing, as our new language was not effective at all.

After this we went to find Legend Bar, as we were told it was the best place to see the sunset from. We found it and quickly got onto the beach and in the water to take pictures and drink our bintangs. We decided we were going to go back to our room, which all 5 of us were living in, to get ready, go out for dinner and then return for a little bit of a party. After dinner we were all just so buggered that we called it a night, Stephan had other ideas and ended up storming into the room at about 2:30 am. As we were all awake he told us about his night saying, “The music was shit, but it was cool because that guy was there, and the other guy, there was another guy there, a whole bunch of girls and some more guys”. After this extremely detailed description of his night out he went to bed, and so did we.

We woke up the following morning feeling as fresh as you can when you are sleeping on crappy mattresses in a room as hot as a fiery pit of doom, ready to scoff breakfast and rush to catch a boat to Lombok. Lindsay and Stephan left the hotel first as Linds wanted to say cheers to Nick, and Stephan needed to check us in. Brandon had his sights set on the many horse pulled carts that is used as a form of transportation on both of the islands we visited and decided he was not going to carry his bags all the way to the port. So Sammy and myself jumped onto the cart, Brandon unfortunately did not take his bike back and had hatched a plan to just leave it at the hotel, without taking it back. This plan was not executed successfully as the bartender that worked at the bar situated about 15 steps away from our front door, called him out and told him to take it back. He reluctantly took it back. It was only next-door so he still got a chance to get in the cart.

When we got to Lombok we got into a taxi that took us to go see the waterfalls. By far one of the most awesome things we have done during our time on Bali. The water was cold and very refreshing and we all had a great time standing under the waterfall admiring the beauty of the area we were so blessed to be in.

The trip back to Bali can be described the following word. Frustrating. We had booked an open return ticket with a company that we couldn’t find. Making it impossible for us to get back on a boat. We had to buy new tickets, which ended up making the trip flippen expensive, which put us in a testing situation. To make the vibe in the group worse, we all ended up becoming aggravated with each other and the boat drivers when we were originally told that the boat would be leaving in the next 15 minutes, when in reality it ended up being 2 hours later.

The boat trip back was quick but painfull as Linz almost got to experience what it is like to hootch over the side of a boat. The boat was a lot more stable than any boat we had previously been on, other than the ferry of course. We also met up with 7 or 8 other students who had been on the other island. A bus ride back to Seminyak was included in the price of our boat ticket. Thank goodness, because by the time we got to Bali none of us were in a state to organize a taxi. We were all a lot happier when we finally got back to Taman Rosani and were able to have hot showers and nice clean and comfy beds to sleep in.

The following weeks mainly consisted of a lot of school work with us being expected to hand in assignments, go to classes, write an exam and do our final defense. Speaking about this is boring. So we fill focus on the highlights of our last 2 weeks on Bali. First one being Sam Peckhams 21^st birthday.

We went out to Alleycats for dinner, which was really great. Sammys birthday falls on Halloween so there were plenty crazy Australians all dressed up. I kind of wish we had done something like that, but we didn’t have money for that so we just made it a typical 21^st, lots of drinking, laughing, dancing and club hopping. Oh and all the dutchies sang about 100 birthday songs to Sammy in Alleycats. Those buggers had gees for days. We ended up in good old SkyGarden, which would later be described as “Satans Palace” by the one and only Brandon Roux.

Next was my birthday, 4 days later. We were writing an exam the day after so we moved it forward a day to let us go out for the Saturday, I wasn’t complaining. We went for dinner, just us South Africans, which I really liked because it was one of the rare moments we had to just enjoy each others company. Not hating on anyone, so no bleak vibes please. I am sure everyone can guess we then went to Alleycats, where we met Stephan and his sister. Double doubles were bought, a deck of cards came out. I got on a bus. I had my third and final birthday party on Bali. And man it was a blowout of epic proportions.

Our final days on Bali were spent with all the people we had learnt to love while studying, jolling and living with them. We all had an amazing time and met so many awesome people. We experienced a completely different culture to our own and learnt that it is good to be in new environments. It is safe to say that we all fell in love with Bali and in the end did leave with mixed emotions as we were going to have to say goodbye to our home and family that had grown on us over the past few months, but at the same time we were looking forward to our next chapter in Thailand.

Thanks to everyone who made this rollercoaster ride an unforgettable experience, we will always have the memories.

Until next time. xx

and then there were four.

On Thursday we had a school field trip to Uluwatu where we were going to watch fire dancers at sunset in a picture perfect venue. We were quite excited as it was going to be the most exciting trip were going to have other than the white river rafting.

However when we got there we were dropped off at the entrance where we waited for the other half of our group to join us, along with our lecturers. When this didn’t happen we all got over waiting and decided to go get ice cream. After returning to our drop off point, our one lecturer came to us saying that they had been waiting at the other entrance. Cool.

We received sarongs and sandwiches and headed inside, while walking to the area to watch the dance I spotted a monkey eyeing my sandwich out, refusing to be attacked like Lindsay in the monkey forest, I threw my roll into a bush and ran, at which point my flip flop broke.

So we found seats and got ready to watch fire dancers, but what we saw was not at all what we were expecting.  About 50 shirtless men came out and sat in a circle and started chanting and repeating what sounded like the words “check” and “tseck” the entire duration of the performance. There were also other dancers who told a story, luckily there was a program telling us what was happening, otherwise we would have no clue. It was interesting but it wasn’t a fire dance, in actual fact the only fire involved was the fire that was used to light us the stage area.

It was a nice experience and we all enjoyed the bit of Balinese culture we just saw but the highlight of the night for all of us was the 1hour and 45minute drive home. It was a truly unique experience as the driver insisted on driving in second gear the entire journey.

Friday was the 10 year anniversary of the Bali Bombings that happened in Kuta, where 202 people died. We decided to go check it out, which in retrospect we regret a bit as the street of Legian was like a ghost town as all the clubs had turned off the music for the duration of the memorial. There were such bleak vibes in the air and it definitely rubbed off on us.

Saturday was spent doing what we do best, vegging by the pool.

Sunday we woke up early and caught a taxi to Sanur, were we bought return boat tickets to Lembongan Island. We got there on a ferry the trip was bumpy but not as unpleasant as expected. We arrived in Lembongan and were bombarded with an offer to go snorkeling, the price was right so we accepted.

We got led down an alleyway away from the water. Slightly confusing. All of a sudden Balinese Rambo pulled up on a scooter that sounded as if it would break down any second, ripped camoflague cargo pants and mullet to boot.

Sami and Linds jumped on the back of a scooter with the guy that approached us first and I got on with Rambo. They took us through a very rural area until we eventually got to a beautiful white sand beach with crystal clear water. 

Rambo then grabbed his kid, gave us snorkeling gear and took us to his boat. We had a great time because we could get really close to the fish and coral reefs. Im not sure if we enjoyed snorkeling or taking pictures of ourselves more. Thank God for underwater cameras. Lucky for us Rambo let us do our own thing, unlike his son, Yogi, who wore a lifejacket and got tied to the boat with a piece of rope.

On our trip back to Sanur we caught a fast boat, the trip was short but extremely bumpy and unpleasant. Note to selves: take the slow boat and never drink the night before. We foresee disaster.

We got back to our hotel relatively early and seeing as we only had a fieldtrip the following morning, the party animal within convinced me to go to Alleycats with the boys. Needless to say, it wasn’t a great idea to play 1 for 1 with 5 dutch boys when drinking the infamous double doubles.

The following morning can only be described as living hell. Being stuck on another bus for a very long drive to Ubud to go visit a traditional Bali Village, to see how daily life is for the Balinese people although I am almost 100% sure that most people don’t plant rice and climb coconut trees all day. I must say that the highlight of the trip was watching a cock fight and of course seeing the reaction of some of our classmates when they saw a spider in a tree.

The rest of the week was spent working on assignments and sitting in classes. Boring. No need to elaborate on this point.

Brandon arrived in Bali yesterday and all three of us are so grateful to have a South African to hang out with and I absolutely love having my partner in crime at my side.

Gili Islands tomorrow and we are all crazy excited for this trip as we have been looking forward to it from day 1. 

Taman Rosani not Toman Rosani

Just a few highlights from our past week in Bali.

- The most exciting thing we did this week was go White Water River Rafting with everyone from varsity. This adventure was near Ubud with a company called Sobek and we really enjoyed it, besides the fact that anything outside is better than being stuck in an auditorium for hours on any day in Bali. Even though we all thought it could have been a bit more of an adrenaline rush, we took in the surroundings, quite amazed by the waterfalls and made up for the lack of excitement by screaming a bit too loudly while going through the rapids even though they werent very big. Being followed by a bunch of whooping men who thought it was too fun to splash us everytime they got close enough while singing "heyyyyy, sexy ladies, wop wop wop wop, Gangnam style", was not as entertaining as it might sound.


- Alleycats has really become our regular watering hole in Kuta where we always manage to drink too much in a short space of time before we head out to somewhere else for a party. We always manage to meet the most interesting people from all over the world and of course the "odd" australian never fails to entertain us. The latest freind we made had the words "dont judge me" tattooed on his bum, a sight we will be glad to never see again but we have a photo, so take a look!

- On Sunday we went to Uluwatu a little area with the most amazing little beach with the best waves which is lying down below and between cliff faces. To get to the beach you have to walk down what feels like a thousand stairs but its definitely worth it. Up amongst the rocks and cliffs are a whole lot of little bars and warungs where no matter where you sit, the view is breath taking. Sunday night is the night for a party in Uluwatu at Single Fin a surfers bar which overlooks the beach. We seemed to have chosen the best night to visit Single Fin as there was a surf competition being held that night with many, many people there to support it. The vibe was too amazing while we sat infront of Single Fin overlooking the break watching the boys surf by spotlight. We will definitely be visiting Uluwatu and Padang Padang again.

- Friday night got a bit more out of hand than anticipated (we blame the double doubles, that hit you hard and when you least expect it), with Bosman chipping a front tooth on a beer bottle. This is no surprise at all, its been a while coming and we are just grateful it isn't any worse than it is. As well as this incident we had a friend in a scooter accident, nothing too serious but just another reminder to us why we should not be on scooters at all!

- We visited a shopping centre today where almost anything could be bought, except cotton of course which we have been looking for for the past two weeks and we have still not found. They do sell fresh water turtles though for 60 bucks, which we think is a steal and we are seriously considering adding a new bugger to the group, dutch name and all. 'Stoffles' will live near the kikker fontijn.

The accents have become noticeably worse, krusty in fact, and when alcohol is consumed it just gets revolting.

We have to renew our social visas tomorrow, 450 000 rupee worth of social visa which we believe could be put to greater use in another form of socialising, something we are not happy about, but then again being deported wouldn't be to great either.

Ta Ta x

1 month in Bali

This blog post marks the end of our first month in Bali, an extremely scary feeling appears when we realise how fast time has passed and is going to carry on passing at this rapid rate. We will be back home in South Africa before we even know what has hit us, but until then...the party, and studying continues!

We had last Monday off from varsity, National Braai day for us Suid Afrikaaners, and we visited Sanur, a beach about 45 minutes away from where we live. The sand was the whitest we have seen and the water was clear, perfect for snorkelling. We met some of the other students there and we all had lunch and a Bintang together. I found a lightning fast worm in my prawn and avo salad, you dont get any fresher than that do you, im not complaining. Although all we could think about was how nice a chop on the braai and some potato bake would be throughout the entire day, it was a good day with being able to swim in the clear blue water and relaxing with friends.

Tuesday was full of Guest lectures again, by full of we mean two because they do take up most of our day. The one lecturer, John Daniels, a.k.a Jack Daniels, we enjoyed listening to very much. Who wouldnt like a man nicknamed Jack Daniels though? His advice to us as students studying Events Management, "A good Events Manager is someone who knows how to invite somebody to hell" or "Invite them to hell and make them enjoy the trip". A very interesting statement but so true at the same time.

We had our first ever "client meetings" on Wednesday with our project groups and our cbl tutor who acted as the client. A completely new experience for all three of us and although we had no idea what to expect going into it, we all survived and due to this we decided a good party was in order. This we have become very good at after scouting out the best places for the free and cheapest booze. Our newest dicovery, Green Box, which is literally just a small green box of a room with a bar counter, is our new favourite place.

We had the greatest time at the Green Box and we have already been inducted to the wall of fame based on our drinking antics that night.

Our weekend started on Wednesday, basically a little holiday and we have become very skilled at not doing much at all and as said before the time seems to fly making it seem like we never get anything done, ever. Thursday came and we made an irrational decision to rent scooters. I then decided it would probably be a good idea to try and actually ride a scooter before we get too ahead of ourselves. This ended really badly, so much so that I have many bruises and scrapes, some financial debt but no broken bones, luckily. What we learnt from this incident is, ALWAYS where a helmet or a fun time in Bali could be very short lived. As a result of my accident we have put the scooter renting on hold, something we are all bleak about but we like having no broken bones so it is probably a wise choice.

Thursday night came, along with a night at Eikon and all you can drink for 100,000 rupee or in rands, just less than a hundred bucks. Bintang and Purple Nurples (Balinese Wine mixed with we dont know what) were consumed at a speedy pace and before we knew what had hit us, it was nearly 3 in the morning and another mission to find a taxi where the driver would actually take us home without grumbling too much because he couldnt rip us off properly like all the other tourists hunting for a ride home. It can now be said that we are slowly losing our 'toursit' status in Bali.

Sami Bosman learnt to speak Dutch in a few hours and lost the ability to speak it within the hours after that. Most entertaining, along with our new dutch slogan "we spruiken af bij de kikkerfontein", tranlsation "meet me at the frog fountain". Code for see you in the swimming pool. 


 

Friday was spent indoors as we experienced our first rainy day of the rainy season. This 'rainy season' will not be enjoyed at all and it is hoped we wont experience too much of it while we are in Bali. A visit to Potato Head was paid where we bought tickets for Foster and the People on Saturday. Friday night was also spent indoors as we prepared ourselves for the debauchery which would ensue the next day at the last beach party before the rain comes for good.

 

Waking up on Saturday feeling as if  it wasnt even my birthday and we werent going to be watching Foster and the People live, was a feeling that was soon replaced by the feeling of absolute awe while we stood in the crowd at Potato Head and felt the amazing energy around us, a moment of crazy happiness. The most amazing firweorks display that all three of us have ever seen just topped the day off as well. Definitely something that will not be forgotten by choice.

 

It has been another week of injuries, fights and fun, and we cant wait to see what the next few weeks will bring.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You slet. Saus Tomat.

So we hav'nt posted for a while...this we blame on the ridiculous amounts of work we have had to do, Stenden Bali does not live up to Stenden South Africa's work ethic.

We woke up on Monday morning not overly keen for our field trips as being outside in the sun in 32 degree heat in formal uniform is no ones idea of fun. We visited the Westin Hotel in Nusa Dua where the international convention centre is situated. The hotel was beautiful along with it's private, white sandy beach and we left with heavy hearts as we knew we would be needing to find rich men to marry to be able to visit again.

 The second stop was the Garuda Wisnu Kencana cultural park. It is a park where huge events are held, the outdoor amphitheatre that is enclosed by huge limestone walls where many music concerts have been held was quite a sight to see. Sammy Peckham and myself were blessed by having 'holy water' and rice put on our foreheads, an interesting experience as well. The views of Kuta and Sanur were amazing but we were very happy to leave and get back to the hotel to swim.

Monday was followed by guest lectures for five hours on Tuesday, something that we are not at all used to is sitting in a room having to sit still and listen for so long. We managed though, with the help of free coffee and food and one of the guest lecturers who was very entertaining despite the fact we could hardly understand what he was saying.

Monday and tuesday were both spent preparing for our event pitches on Wednesday. The word that could be used to describe these pitches would be a bloodbath, as unlike Stenden South Africa where we go into presentations with the mindset that we do unto others as you would like done unto you, or in other words we do not critisise eachother or question eachother, and it is the complete opposite here! Something that we will have to get used to, keeping in mind it will probably be better for us in the long run.

The rest of Wednesday was spent trying to finish our Initiative reports so we could hand them in on Thursday and have a long weekend, we all made it after working into the night, some of us just by the skin of our teeth! Our last management skills lecture with the best lecturer in the world, Yoke, was just as good as all our other lectures with her as she made us laugh continuously, falling asleep in her classes is just not an option.

Some of the students organised a pool party for everyone at the hotel and the hotel staff 'braaid' for us as well. A braai here constitutes of using a fan to start the fire and pre-cooking the meat before actually braaing it, something which we found hilarious. After the party everyone headed out to sky garden, where extreme hangovers are made and a lot of money is spent on we dont know what. The taxi ride there, just like all of them was another experience. The taxi shook violently from side to side the entire way, we expected one of the wheels to fall off  at any moment. Fortunately for us the driver did not drive more than 40kmh the whole way there. We are still getting used to peoples reactions when we tell them that we are from South Africa and that we are in Bali for two and a half months, its getting to the point where questions like, "Isnt it really dangerous to live there?" and "Do you live in a forest?" are just answered with completely sarcastic remarks.

 

The whole of Friday was spent recovering, and it literally did take the whole day. We decided to not go out on Friday night and save ourselves for Saturday which was a good idea consisdering the crazy jol we had last night. We discovered Alley Cats, a bar down one of the Poppies Gang alley's of Legian. Double Doubles, which is the drink everyone talks about from Alley Cats, is going to be the cause of much debauchery in the coming weeks.

 

Last night was by far the best jol we have had in Bali so far, along with our ride home which was one crazy adventure, one which none of us will ever forget, except for Melvin, who was asleep the entire way home, how, we do not know. Lets just say it was one of those, "If we die now, we die happy" moments, techno/electro music and all.



Our latest mission is to learn to ride scooters as having to pay for taxi's is starting to become a financial burden on our drinking benefits.

Bosman finally decided to get her white body into the sun today after our friend Stefan commented, "Even im browner than you and im a foken ginger!" She is now as red as a tomato but it had to be done.

We didn't bring Flash drives.

2am and we were awake. We packed our backpacks, put on our takkies and went outside to meet our driver. There was already a German girl in the car and we still had to go pick 1 more person up, a girl from LA who has family in East London. Small world. By the time she got in the car we were running a bit late and it had started to drizzle. We got a flat tyre about 30 minutes into the trip, which in all honesty we were not surprised at after he was driving so badly, hitting every pothole in the road. 

We then stopped off to have tea, coffee and pancakes with chocolate and bananas and told to wolf it down because we are running behind schedule and would have to run up the volcano to make it in time for sunrise. We were all a bit on edge at this point and by the time we actually got to the site we were just keen to get walking, luckily for us the rain had stopped. We were greeted by our 'guide' who was really enthusiastic and took a photo of all of us before asking if we had brought flashlights. Seriously? Three little blonde girls who didn't even think to pack jackets. No. We don't have flashlights. 

We resorted to using the flash on our blackberries. Thank you technology. It was pitch black and we were about 2 minutes into the walk when our very reliable and knowledgable 'guide' tells us that he is not feeling very well and can we please do the hike by ourselves.  Eyewitness Travel, Bali and Lombok states that "A local cartel, the HPPGB discourages trekking alone and climbers are advised to take a licensed guide with them", we were all seriously unimpressed with this guy and in retrospect should of cut our losses and left him at the bottom of the volcano, but in the moment we were all fuming and actually shat the guide out, saying we have spent so much money to do the trek and it is extremely unorganized considering we were running late, had no way of seeing where we were going and our guide was trying to ditch us, he reluctantly took us up the volcano. 

The trek was a mixture of soft sand and loose volcanic rock, this made things very difficult for us and I seriously thought at least one of us would come back home with a missing tooth or broken leg, which would have been a serious problem, because there is not a chance any of those useless people making a quick buck out of us had a first aid kit let alone a plaster. 

Half way through the hike our Blackberries proved to us why they are such useless phones after being on charge all night and being put to the test for about 40 minutes, the batteries started dying, leaving us to share lights between us, slowing the hike down. As time went on we began to get more and more concerned that we would still be climbing when the sun started to rise, Lindsay was motivating us to move forward more than the 'guide' who kept trying to convince us that the sun only rose at 6:30am. He needed to rest more than us and close to the top we decided to leave him panting on a rock. We were then met by another man on the path who tried to hijack us as a group and lead us up. Also trying to tell us that there would be cold Coca Cola and Bintang at the top of the volcano. We were not interested at all and after a few minutes of him slowing us down Lindsay just told him to get out the way. Not really sure if the main reason for this was that she wanted to get to the top or because he was the smelliest human being of all time and she was gagging from being downwind of his stench. 

Reaching the top was an amazing feeling and we managed to get there just in time to watch the light from the sun creep over the lake and make the misty valley the most beautiful color, allowing us to see what we had just spent about 2 hours climbing up. We whipped out our cameras, took a few photos and then just sat down and soaked in the view . Our 'guide' was right, the sun did rise at 6:30, but by then the picture perfect moments were long gone. We became frustrated shortly after when our 'guide' approached us and offered us a hot drink, that was at an extra cost. When we booked the tour we were assured that we would be getting coffee or tea at the peak as well as bread, bananas and an egg that they would cook using the heat from the volcano. Empty promises. We complained. Again. We finally did receive the breakfast we were promised and it was extremely unsatisfying. 

We were seriously disappointed in the tour, but at the end of the day we were still standing at the top of the most active volcano in Bali. An amazing moment and achievement for all of us. Our 'guide' and driver put us through a lot of grief but the views alone were worth it. However we do still need to google the volcano to find out how far we walked etc, because the 'guide' could not answer a single question. Surprise. Surprise. 

When we finally made it back down the volcano we were all just keen to get back to our Hotel in Seminyack, not that gross room we rented for the night. We negotiated a price and jumped into a taxi, leaving Ubud behind us. We had a really good weekend away but I cannot see us returning to Ubud. We would rather spend our time on a beach enjoying the fish in the sea and learning to surf than getting robbed blind by someone who has only climbed up the volcano 3 times. 

Life is all about different experiences and no matter how unpleasant they are, I am sure that as long as we have each other to get through them we will manage to have a good time. 

That is it for the weekend. More varsity field trips in the morning.

xx

"Make your own sandwich? I want to make a sandwich with 10 layers of bacon and thats it."

The last post was typed on Friday afternoon, but just to cover what we did after that. We went looking for a Mexican Restaurant with our friends who were certain it was just down the road, which it wasn't. After walking for half an hour in the wrong direction we decided to just eat anywhere. The boys were disappointed and we are sure the search for tacos will resume sometime this coming week.

Monkey Forest.

Saturday morning we woke up and caught a taxi to Ubud, we got dropped just outside the Monkey Forest excepting to see a lot of monkeys and some Balinese people worshipping said monkeys. What we were not expecting was for one of the fattest monkeys in the forest to jump onto Lindsay, attacking her water bottle 2 minutes after walking through the gates. Unfortunately there is no photographic evidence of this event as Lindsay just stood still trying to avoid being bitten and myself and Sam were useless, panicking more than Lindsay. Needless to say that incident really put us off and every time someone offered us "Banana for the monkey?" we quickly declined.

"It is advisable to heed the warnings against feeding the monkeys - they can become aggressive."

The people who work at the monkey forest obviously do not heed against these warnings, they are just keen on making a quick buck off all the tourists. It was extremely bizarre for us to see people laying out offerings and chanting to the monkeys, all we saw were monkeys living the high life playing on vines and ancient stone temples and snatching the food being offered before it hit the ground. The funniest moment of this excursion was definitely seeing a little boy walk in as we walked out with an entire bunch of bananas, he looked extremely chuffed with life but he had not seen the thousands of little monkey eyes watching him, we all just chuckled and said "yoh, goodluck".

We then made our way up Monkey Forest road in search of our next excursion and a place to eat. There were many "tourism offices" where you could book tours, so thinking we were all cool we went to most of them trying to bargain for the best deal. We managed to organise a short tour to the elephant cave or buddhist temples and to the rice terraces and we booked an excursion to hike up Mount Batur a volcano which is still active. As we learned later, we would be jewed out of the proper experience anyway. We had lunch at an amazing little restaurant in central Ubud that looked over a beautiful rice field and we ate the most delicious food, leaving us all so full we could hardly walk back up the road in search of accommodation.

Our adventure to the elephant cave or some of the many Buddhist temples was an enlightening experience but not one that we would highly recommend. We were required to wear sarongs into the temples as a sign of respect, something which we were not too excited about as it was extremely hot. Next stop, the rice terraces, which are definitely as beautiful as what they look in pictures. We did a bit of shopping and visited a place where they showed us how to make coffee, we also got to sample different types of coffees and teas. The Vanilla Coffee was too divine for words.

Elephant Caves.

Coffee and Tea Tasting.

We went for dinner at a small restaurant where sitting on the floor on pillows was optional, we chose this option. It was not long until we spotted the mice (Plural), running around everywhere. We were all very shocked and the waiter found it quite amusing. Besides the mice, the food was good.

We managed to find accommodation at a small home-stay just off one of the main roads which we paid R70.00 each for, for the night, little did we know it would come with some surprises, nonetheless entertaining as usual. We thought we found the bargain of the century until we bathed ourselves and went to bed. The bathroom was very special, the basin was in the bedroom but if it was in the bathroom  it would have been possible to sit on the toilet, shower and brush your teeth at the same time. Efficient- yes, hygienic- not so much. When bed time came we were greeted with ginormous ants all over the floor, which later made their way into our beds. We blame this on Sammy as she thought it was a good idea to kill all their friends with her slop. As all became still and we got used to it sounding like we were sleeping in Grand Central Station with all the motorbikes up and down the road, we heard a very strange sound coming from what sounded like in my bed. We eventually presumed it was a chicken in the roof, we found out today that it was not a chicken, but a species of gecko or lizard. We are all really glad we did not know it was a gecko or a lizard because from the volume of the sound it was making it sounded like it could be the size of a Komodo dragon. We also had to lock our door with a wooden plank, how Sammy slept, we have no idea.

Too hungry to write anymore, to be continued….

You know its been a good night when you have mayo all over your camera, sky garden foot, did you bring your library card?

Refferring to the end of our last post, Bosman and myself ended up going out. Just the two of us took on Kuta leaving everyone else at the hotel completely amazed at how we could go out the night before we have our first cbl the next day, which by the way lasted three hours! Stenden South Africa maybe you should take notes, or don't!

After meeting more aussies and late night/early morning swims we managed to get into bed at 05:30. We had to walk home but it took much longer than anticipated, Bosman had an extreme craving for MacDonalds and we stopped almost every 10 metres to try and phone MacDonalds for free McDelivery, which is a compelete lie, as it is not free!! After being harrassed by stray dogs and no help from our guide, our new friend Murray, we got home. Getting home when the newspapers are being delivered and the Muslims are getting up to prey is a new experience indeed.

Bosman and I have proven that we can almost function properly at varsity with 3 hours sleep and severe hangovers, good to know. We managed to get MacDonalds for lunch, we would not reccommend trying to order MacDonalds over the phone in Bali, unless you can speak Indonesian! The rest of the day we slothed around and managed to get some work done.

The truth.

Yesterday we had to do pitches in class which were quite interesting and all three of us have decided our lecturer for our management skills class is the best lecturer we have ever had, a photo will follow soon! Our mission for the day was to walk through the area we live and check out the market and all the shops. Mission accomplished! as well as another small mission we had, to eat some avo!!! Next to the chicken cordon bleu that I have eaten from our favourite resataurant, Honeybees down the road from our hotel, the baguette with avo, bacon, chicken, tomatoe, rocket and chilli mayo was a real treat...or THE TRUTH as Bosman would say. We purchased another kettle which almost had a shorter life span as the previous one but fortunately it still grafts.



Last  night we decided we would have a bit of our own boatraces in our faces. We have become regulars at sky garden and will be recieving our student cards next week, which entitles us to even more free booze, not that we need any more. Things got quite out of hand from all the free drinks we drank and resulted in the three of us across the road from sky garden, sharing really good take away food like hobos. The taxi ride home was interesting and very innapropriate as our taxi driver was sure we wanted some Jiggy Jig. We were almost involved in two accidents with scooters but these incidents were more hilarious than usual as both times it happened our taxi driver shouted "Eish Fuck!", exactly like a South African. We were in bed by 01:00 which says a lot on its own.

It continues.

Jamming Sky Garden.

We are planning on going to Ubud tomorrow for the day and night to see the monkey forest and rice fields and explore. Im sure we will have some interesting stories to follow.

xx

Near death experience.

So i finally have a replacement room key. Which should make me happy, except for the fact that we only get given 1 key per room, meaning that myself and my room mate Denise (who is really nice by the way) have to share. Creating admin because we have to leave the key at the reception desk for each other. But still, it isn't completely unbearable.

Most exciting new development in the area of Seminyak (where we stay) is that there will be a new club opening across the street. The fact that we will just be able to stumble across the gravel road after a jol and not get harassed by lunatic taxi drivers is a seriously exciting prospect. The owner has offered our friends free drinks on the opening night, we still need to crack the nod, but i have no doubts that an invitation is in the not too distant future. The owner also wants to invite Selena Gomez to the grand opening, we all think he is reaching a bit far, but shame, let the man dream.

On a completely unrelated note, I almost burnt the hotel down today after making a seriously rookie mistake while making noodles in Sam and Lindsays bedroom. Im not sure if we have spoken about our R20 kettle we bought in the supermarket yet, and incase we have I apologize. A brief description: It is a plastic water jug with an element that has the shortest cable of all time. It takes about half an hour to boil water properly and it leaks while boiling. Lindsays dad calls it a "Soweto special" and we couldn't agree more. So now that you have a visual, after boiling a bit of water, I started to pour the water over the noodles, without taking the plug out of the wall. Not really sure about the science behind this situation, but the lid of the kettle shot off and there was hot water all over the floor. And all over my arm. Anyway long story short, the entire bedroom smelt like it was on fire and the little kettle is no longer boiling water. Lindsay and Sami are quite pissed off with me, but just thinking of it makes me laugh. And lucky for us Tom and Melvin have a "water  boiler" as they like to call it. If you guys are reading this again, we thank you in advance for letting us use the KETTLE. :)

Sammy is feeling a little bit sick so we are not sure about the plans for tonight.

One more random story for the day, Sam just made a cup out of a water bottle, she is quite proud of it.

Thats all for now. xx

K, guys its our time to shine.

Vi Ai Pi on thursday night was a bit of a let down, it was their 4th Birthday party and the vibe was cool, just a bit chilled for our liking. There was a drinking competition that our friends won and two Indo singers that were really good, but the atmosphere was lacking so we moved next door to our favorite place in Bali, SkyGarden. However this time round SkyGarden was too full making it almost impossible for us to make use of the free flow special. Boo. We got over it and decided to have an early night. Lindsay also learned that it is not a good idea to drink while taking anti-biotics.
                                                                                                  

Friday morning we woke up quite late and spent most of the morning in the pool before heading to Kuta with some of the Dutch students, we managed to fit 6 people in a taxi excluding the driver which the dutch students did not find amusing at all. We roamed the streets spending way too much money, where Lindsay and I found our new favourite shop, with the most amazing clothes, which made as take a vow to not eat out anymore so we could spend our money there rather!

We then went to a pool party at the ProSurf Lounge sponsored by Billabong. The taxi ride there and the fact that we were starving kind of killed our vibe and to top it off it was even more busy than SkyGarden, seriously disappointing and it was impossible to get a drink at the bar where the barman were moving at snail-pace. As well as the slow service the locals were extremely rude and unwelcoming. Instead of letting it kill our party mood we decided to go next door to the supermarket and buy a few beers each and move across the street to Kuta Beach. We just chilled with our mates and enjoyed the music from the party, feeling brave we thought it would be a good idea to walk along the beach all the way back to our hotel. Not only did we walk about 8km down the beach to get home, we then had to walk through some very dark ally ways which we would not normally do in South Africa so everything in our minds was telling us to freaking run even though it was quite safe. An hour and a half later we got back to the hotel to find that the lock on my door had broken when my roommate had come home earlier in the night. We then ended up pushing Sammy and Lindsay's beds together and having little sleepover.

The alarm went off this morning which none of us even heard, we eventually forced ourselves out of bed close to lunch time as we had to go on a search for a supermarket to buy some noodles, noodles and more noodles, our staple diet for the next few weeks. We were very disappointed to find out that fruit is fairly expensive but we had a lot of fun pushing the baskets on wheels around the shop…

We have just come home from an Aussie bar which is situated right down the road from our hotel..we had a few Bintang's while watching South Africa lose, much to the amusement of all the Aussie's at the bar. Although we left with our heads hung low sammy was very happy that she made it out alive and no geckos fell on her head.

Over the last couple of days, Lindsay and I have realised that the more we drink and meet more Aussies the more we are developing a bit of an Aussie accent, something which we are trying very hard to avoid but so far we are failing.

xx

we don't do that in Africa.

As you know we went out to Kuta last night and you are hoping to hear some juicy details about the night. Sorry to disappoint you but we have made a pact that what happens at SkyGarden stays at SkyGarden, unless you can figure out what happened for yourselves after we post some pics…

No description needed.

In the cab going to Kuta.

All we will say is that a great time was enjoyed by all, so much so that none of us noticed the fact that there was an earthquake in the early hours of this morning, no tsunami warning, so everything is fine.
The party continues. Jollers must jol.

I did almost get beaten up by what is by far the largest balinese person of all time. I walked into her after turning around in a hurry messing my after the party street food all over her. After apologizing what seemed to be 1000 times I searched for Sami and Lindz who had run away in anticipation of a real "beat down".

Returning to our hotel at about 3:30 am. we decided it was a brilliant idea to go for a swim with our new friends, yes, we finally have some friends (bbm dancing face). Lindsay woke up this morning with an eye infection, and Sam with the worst hangover of all time.



After convincing the girls that a trip to town would help cure us we headed off to the mall in search of laptop plugs and slip slops and of course something to eat. We then had an encounter with the most reckless driver in Bali, he seriously needs to get his license revoked and should thank his lucky stars that his cab was left in the same state it was when we got in. Sam was not feeling too great, the mixture of hangover, extreme heat and jerky driving did not treat her well. No more explanation needed.

The combination of jet lag and free drinks caught up to all of us today and we all enjoyed long afternoon naps. It is now time for us to get stuck into that work.

Lovelove x

Why are we so short?

First day of lectures. Hands down the longest amount of time any of us have ever spent in a lecture hall in a day let alone an entire week. This mainly consisted of various lecturers telling us about our upcoming module, the info about Bali like the culture and the dos and don'ts. From all of this the two things that stood out to us was that if someone on the side of the road asks us for "jiggy jiggy" the answer is always no, and that if we want to survive in Bali we HAVE to jaywalk(no problems for Sam Peckham here, but myself and Lindsay will have to work on this particular skill of ours.)

We then had welcoming drinks, this is the first time we have come across Arak. It wont be the last and none of us are complaining.

As we have no class tomorrow, just 5 chapters to read and a CBL to prepare for, you know no biggy, we have decided to venture off to the party area Kuta for the night. We will have to update you on this epic adventure at a later stage, but until then we will just have to talk about a cat that lives in our hotel that we are 100% positive is possessed or extremely demented. This thing is seriously creepy with its meow that makes it sound like it is dying from  laryngitis and the way it lurks behind every corner giving you the fright of your life.

Lots of love and hugs xxx

First day of school.

first 24 hours in Bali, still no new friends....

Lunch at the mall.

Today started off fairly slowly, even though we woke up in high spirits expecting to make new friends, this proved more difficult than originally expected, but we still managed to end off in a high note in true saffa style.

Our first adventure of the day was to mission off to the Bali Galleria in search of sim cards and laptop plugs, as everyone reading this will know we were successful in activating our bbm services (as this is of highest importance), however we are still sharing one laptop between three of us and this may be the case for a few more days.

We cracked the nod to the beach with some of the other students but thats about as far as the socializing went for the day. So off we went with our nerdy backpacks and our cameras in search of a party.

No success.


We returned to the hotel (res) and as most of you, if you knew us at all, would know we had prepared in advance by purchasing the necessary jolling materials in duty free. The pool was greatly enjoyed by all three of us. ;) After getting soaked, we refreshed ourselves and headed out for dinner.

Playing with our underwater cameras. Haha.

We enjoyed our first BINTANG beer. After our above average dinner we went to a bar/grill just up the road from our hotel and ordered a very expensive and effective cocktail each. Leaving Cubana proved a difficult feat, Sam Bosman and myself needed assistance from the traffic marshall who stopped all oncoming cars and scooters so we could make it across safely, while Sam Peckham ran across the road with no regard for oncoming traffic and crazy balinese drivers.

First of many Bintangs in Bali.

Our first Sunday in Bali well spent.

love love xxx SLS (Sam & Lindsay sandwich)