We spent most of our day time fending off eager vendors and wandering the busy streets of Kuta.  We also ate.  A lot.

A couple of days in we managed to catch up with my very dear friends from London and took them out for cocktails and drinks.  The night started on a two-for-one with a live band, which then turned into a makeshift kareoke (LOVED IT) much to our delight, which then turned into dancing madly at the Sky Bar.  At one point during the night we vaguely remember taking turns chugging a large bottle of Bintang on the street as an old Balinese woman with no teeth clapped and cheered us on.  Jase finished off the bottle and belched loud enough to make sure everyone who wasn’t watching was now doing so.  “I like your hat”, he told the woman.  I laughed the rest of the way to Sky Bar.

I remember pole dancing, dancing into a fan and shuffling.  Then desperately skulling 2 litres of water in an effort to stave off the day long hangovers I usually get.  There is nothing worse than wasting a day on holiday in your hotel watching Jersey Shore because you were too hungover to get up.  I dragged Jason out of bed in the morning and we made our way down to the cafe we’d agreed to meet Prim and Waj at.  They were no show.  They were a no show right up until 7.30pm, about the same time I’d decided they’d been kidnapped and killed on their way home from the club the night before.  “WHAT HAPPENED” they asked us.  “HOW ARE YOU NOT AS HUNGOVER AS US?”  Sheer determination, seriously.

It was decided that we’d hire a car to drive to Ubud in the centre of the island.  Well, at first it was decided we’d hire scooters which I’m so glad we didn’t, I enjoy living.

The drive was hilarious.  Bali lacked any sort of comprehensible sign posts and seems to have zero road rules.  There were four lanes of cars in a marked out 2 lane road, scooters going horizontal in traffic.  The whole experience was topped off by our shit heap of a car falling apart as we went over hills and did things like, stop, etc.  It shit out in the middle of an intersection, I don’t think it had mirrors, the glove box would open itself and the sun visors had a tough time staying upright.  It took us 2 days to figure out how to open one of the doors.  In what would be the miracle of the year, we actually found our way to Ubud with no back tracking, purely going off Prim’s excellent navigation skills from a vague Lonely Planet map.

Beautiful Ubud was a stark contrast to insane Kuta.  Big sweeping vines roofed the roads, thatched houses line a gorge and the whole place reminded me of something straight out of the jungle book.  The hotels were gorgeous.  Prim and Waj’s was a stunning stone maze that I fell in love with immediately and we ended up up the road a little next to paddy fields in a deluxe marble room with a four post bed.  WITH CURTAINS.  I LOVE BEDS WITH CURTAINS.  They make me feel like a princess.

We had dinner before heading out to see tradition Balinese dancing, which was interesting and slightly weird and I got eaten alive by mosquitos.  It was held outdoors in the ruins of an old temple, I think.  I giggled at Jason’s traumatised face when he came back from the public bathroom.

The highlight of Ubud was definitely the Monkey Temple.  We went prepared, carrying nothing (except tightly held cameras), wearing nothing shiny, no hats, no sunglasses.  As we wandered around the beautiful reserve, the monkeys watched us with interest, stopping only to make a display of wanking themselves off or shagging which caused Jason to burst out laughing and run off with my camera to capture the moment.   I spent 15 minutes talking him out of buying a large wooden blow dart gun from a local vendor in there.  He’s still not forgiven me for that.  He later got molested by a gang of monkeys who started climbing up his legs when they realised he’d bought a bundle of bananas to give them.

The drive back to Kuta took half as long.  We spent our remaining days on holiday relaxing at the beach and buying more assorted shit.  There was a teary but brisk farewell at the airport and I seriously cannot wait to get back to London to see everyone again.