Bali
Bali is one of those destinations that I’d always vaguely thought sounded amazing but had never really got around to seriously considering actually going there until I’d been dating Kate for a few months & she suggested we go for our first holiday together. Well actually, we talked about a long weekend in Europe, maybe Greece, and it quickly escalated into 2 weeks in Bali… basically because Kate kept saying, “Yeah but what about Bali?” until I started to feel like going had been my idea all along!
Thankfully, it was one of the best decisions ever as the entire trip was completely out of this world! Very worthy of the Spacefrog Hall of Fame.
So, we packed our trunk with a trumpety trump & off we set. First stop, Gatwick for the obligatory breakfast-with-cocktail photo & then an incredibly long flight to Kuala Lumpur for an 8-hour stopover before connecting to Denpasar.
Kuala Lumpur stop-over
While in KL, we decided to head out for a bit & see some of the city. We walked around for an hour & then changed our plan as it was so incredibly hot that we felt like we were about to pass out. We got a taxi to a swanky hotel with a rooftop pool & bar overlooking the Petronas Towers to cool down for a bit but they wouldn’t let us up as it was for guests only. Feeling like a bit of a baller, I said ok, we’ll book a room. Oh what’s that? You only have a suite available? Of course you do. Fine, we’ll take the suite then & pay for a night just so we can swim for a couple of hours & have a quick nap before going back to the airport. Insane, but it turned out to be a far better option that walking round in the unbearable heat. We had a great swim with some cocktails, then had a 90-min nap before showering & heading to the airport to fly to Bali.
Immigration queue hell
By the time we arrived in Denpasar, it was pretty late, like 10pm, and after disembarking we went into the arrivals hall, along with about 3 other planes’ worth of passengers, and then queued for about 3 hours to go through customs. It was completely mental -the queues were massive & there didn’t seem to be any urgency or effort to get people processed any quicker. Our hotel transfer driver must have phoned me 20 times to check we were still coming…
Uluwatu
Finally we were through and on the way to our first hotel of the trip. We were staying in a cliff-side hotel in Uluwatu that looked straight out onto the sea from the bedroom, It was a little basic but comfy and gorgeous. The steps down were treacherous - very steep, no handrail, basically a nightmare at 2am carrying heavy suitcases, but we finally made it. We were completely exhausted but also totally jet-lagged and far too wired to sleep so we stayed up until about 5 drinking wine and eating pringles before finally going to bed,
We were rudely awakened at 7am by workmen drilling and hammering as they built new bedrooms for the hotel (which was not in the brochure!) & wandered over to the hotel next door as they served food whereas ours did not. After a wonderful meal with amazing coffee, we hired a scooter from our hotel for a couple of days and went off exploring the area.
Uluwatu is a gorgeous place - full of dramatic cliffs and temples. We went to one fairly nearby for sunset, having covered ourselves with the provided sarongs, and enjoyed stunning views from the cliff edge over the sea as the sun went down before having dinner & heading back to our hotel & relaxing on the balcony.
The next day we went to a beach and I went out for a sea swim. The waves were pretty intense and, despite being a confident open-water swimmer, I may have got a little carried away, swimming straight out past all the surfers on their boards and then out a bit more. Which was fine, until I started to head back in & realised I wasn’t making any progress due to the riptide. Long story short, it took me about 45 mins to swim back in and I could feel myself moving slightly backwards for a solid 20 minutes. I couldn’t swim to the right because the waves were smashing onto rocks and to the left were all the surfers so I just kept plugging away until finally, with the help of a series of massive waves that sent me tumbling around under the surface, I got back to the beach and a somewhat concerned girlfriend. My bad.
Ubud
After 2 days in Uluwatu, we got a taxi to Ubud. Looking at a map, I was convinced it would take about half an hour to get there - it was like 50km - but Kate just laughed & said it would be more like 2.5hrs because of the state of the roads and general traffic. Literally everyone rides scooters, many without a helmet & usually with at least 3 passengers and a dog. It’s insane. And the standard of roadcraft isn’t great but I found I fitted in really well when we were on a scooter. However, right now we were in a car so the journey took forever.
We finally arrived at the Komaneka hotel in Ubud, our home for the next 2 days. That evening, we swam in the stunning pool surrounded by lush greenery, ate an amazing dinner and got an amazing sleep, catching up on what we’d missed the last two nights of jetlag.
The next morning, our first task was to go for a wander and get a scooter, picking up breakfast on the way. Kate wanted a Scoopy; I had no idea what this meant but soon realised it’s a retro-looking scooter and we found one that ticked the cute boxes for Kate & the brakes even worked, so I was happy too.
Ubud is a truly unique place. Very bohemian, spiritual, relaxed, chilled… everyone wearing floaty fabrics and doing yoga. Very cool. Kate’s very much into this way of life anyway and I threw myself in with gusto. We did yoga at Yoga Barn and a gong meditation session and I ate vegan food on purpose.
The next day we’d booked acoustic sound bio-resonance