I took a flight from Sandakan to KL where I bumped into Amelie, which was very weird and small-worldly, and we got different flights to Bali. I was picked up at airport by Paget which was AMAZING, just literally the best most indescribable feeling seeing your boyfriend after SO LONG apart [was probably one of the highlights of the whole trip]! We took a taxi back to the amazing hotel which he'd booked because he'd arrived the day before, walked into the lobby of some absolute beauty and luxury of a place where a nice uniformed porter gave me a cold towel and took my bags to our room [literally so far removed from every other place I'd stayed in throughout Asia!], and when I got to the room pag had arranged for our bed to be decorated with flowers - SO SWEET! We went to the beach that night with a picnic and it was so nice just feeling the sea breeze in paradise under the stars and catching up.

Bali is the only hindu island in Indonesia and has such a strong cultural heritage. We stayed on a part of the island called Kuta which is like a big brash commercialised european beach resort town with western clubs and restaurants, where families go, and where people, namely lots of americans and australians, fly over to party there for just a week. So it's reeeally touristy and there's a totally different vibe to most of the places in Asia I'd been, and is totally different to anywhere else on the island - and you could visit Bali, not go near Kuta, and have a completely different holiday experience. But even so the Balinese people are still highly religious and spiritual in Kuta and there's still such a rich culture evident in the quirky arts and crafts you can buy and all the dainty little handicraft and art shops, and there are religious offerings put out on the floor everyday outside every shop (which we were confused about, we thought we'd arrived in time for a festival or something). We pretty much beached every day for a week, so it felt like travelling had temporarily stopped for a nice relaxed beach holiday.

The first day we just went for a walk on the beach and happened to bump into the girls sunbathing and it was so lovely to see them again and also Helen, especially because I hadn't seen any of my home friends in too long. Me and Pag found somewhere really nice to stay off the main shopping road where there were loads of nice little boutique shops, and also major brand surf shops like roxy, and then wandered down poppie's lane which is full of shops with crude stickers, crude t-shirts and wooden cocks with different functions (bottle opener etc) and packed with backpacker accommodation (not cheap), little restaurants, and loads of massage/beauty parlours.
So our days would be mainly spent shopping, eating or tanning on Kuta beach which is insane - the waves are so strong and high so the sea isn't really fun to swim in because of the strong current, and you are constantly being hassled by people wanting you to buy henna tattoos, icecream, a bow and arrow (?weird), surfing lessons, or to get a massage/ manicure/ foot scrub from them. We met some funny characters though like Horas, the Indonesian surfer who told us his life story about how he ended up on Bali and told me I looked like I regularly do shrooms because I have 'mushroom eyes' and had such a manic laugh. And we met Mama Loco (picture) who was a very small lady who pumiced pag's feet and was completely mental, also sitting and chatting with us about random things. As well as hanging and clubbing with the girls (mainly at Skygarden where they also did an incredible sushi buffet), we also had such a relaxing week doing couply things like getting massages together (except that both times we went, I got a massage and pag got a facial and then a full body scrub because he was jealous of my tan and they made him put on these tiny black binliner panties which was truly the most hilarious thing ever).