Ubud is a really beautiful artsy town, and is the cultural and artistic centre of bali where quite a few expat artists came to live and work, so there are loads of art galleries and museums everywhere. I got minibus with Helen and Pag [Am and Ulrika wanted to head straight for the Gili Islands], and we drove past loads of beautiful rice paddies and literally hundreds of handicraft shops and art stores with people painting outside and mini art warehouses with hundreds of buddhist/hindu/some form of religious statues outside. We stayed by the Ubud Monkey Forest Sanctuary so there were always cute little monkeys roaming around the pavements and climbing on roofs, and it was right in the centre of the town. The first day there we went to such a nice little restaurant that was really traditionally decorated with loads of balinese art on the walls where we just sat for hours, and in the evening we went to see a traditional balinese dance show at Ubud Palace which helen and pag massively hated because it was quite dull and samey and went on for an hour and a half so they kept leaning behind me and looking at each other and mouthing 'this is SHIT!' to each other.. We went for a wander around town after and discovered the biggest gem of our entire holiday: Cafe Wayan - a massive gorgeous open-air restaurant set behind a bakery in a kind of dark jungle-like setting with low tables spread in little alcoves lit by candles and with the MOST INCREDIBLE and diverse menu of all time. We went there for every single meal and every night we stayed until it shut which was at a non-specific time, basically whenever we decided to leave that was when they closed for the night.

The second day we arranged to see the volcano, Gunung Batur and some public baths, we made friends with Woody, an 8-yr old fisher and a gang of young Indonesian girls, and got hassled by children trying to sell us things on a bridge. The final day we rented bikes to try and explore more of Ubud because we definitely hadn't seen enough of everything on offer but it didn't really get us anywhere because mine and helen's bikes were shit and we had to walk them whenever we encountered any kind of uphill slope. And pag kept riding in front of us on his mountain bike and skidding really close to us like a moron going 'woah dude check out my skid!' and being such an attention seeker. Ubud is apparently the place to go for spiritual tourism so our aim for the day was to find and sample what a real yoga class on Bali would be like so with the help and hindrance of our bikes, we did a yoga lesson at the Yoga Barn. Pag was the only guy in the room and he absolutely loved it even though he was completely crap and made me and helen wait behind at the end because he wanted the yoga teacher to check out his headstand! Ubud has so much stuff to offer like botanical gardens, batik/ craft/ cookery courses, loads of amazing art museums, beautiful surrounding countryside etc. - but we ended up doing very little because we spent most of our time just hanging out together and enjoying each others company in a fantastically charming and relaxing town.

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).