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Bali 🇮🇩

July - August 2023
Time to get surfing! Read more
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  • JGM TRAVELS 2023Bali 🇮🇩
    Day 1

    Arrival in Bali

    July 13, 2023 in Indonesia ⋅ ⛅ 26 °C

    Travel day
    Today's the day we leave Thailand, both of us are gutted to be leaving but onwards to our next destination - Bali !
    Instead of getting a taxi to the airport , we went for the cheaper option and caught the airport bus . We didn't realise that the bus stop was practically opposite the hotel so we had a bit of a wait , but better than lugging our bags for miles !
    Bus to airport took an hour and we got checked in with no issues . The plane journey was quite cramped and alot of the seats were broken . James felt very cramped due to his height and there was a very annoying man next to him who fell asleep on James shoulder . James politely told him to move and he went and sat somewhere else - result ! Flight only 4.5 hours so not too bad at all .
    When we got to the Denpasar airport in Bali , there were huge queues to get visas , then another queue to declare how much luggage you have! It was literally so chaotic .
    Getting a taxi to our hotel was effortless and cheap, only taking 30 mins. The roads here are very busy and there is a big night life scene where we are , so very noisy too .
    We dropped our bags off in our room and walked down to the beach . The waves here are huge and quite daunting , hopefully we won't be in surf too big for our lessons .    Read more

  • JGM TRAVELS 2023Bali 🇮🇩
    2
    Day 2

    1. Uluwatu Beach and surrounding beaches

    July 14, 2023 in Indonesia ⋅ 🌬 27 °C

    Uluwata beach and explore

    Today was a really good day for waves in Bali , James and I decided to head to the famous Uluwatu beach , which was an hour long drive on the moped . The journey was really sketchy , with cars and mopeds everywhere and heavy traffic . Once again, James did amazingly , but we accidently ended up going past the beach . Not a problem though as we ended up at uluwatu temple instead !
    We had to wear sashes around our waists to cover up our legs before entering the holy grounds . The grounds were beautiful , with loads of monkeys everywhere . The monkeys seemed more aggressive than in Nepal, but they are still the macaque breed. One lady had her sunglasses grabbed off her face , which we found hilarious until the same thing happened to James . This monkey came out of no where and grabbed his daily prescription glasses off his face and ran off up a tree. One of the workers there tried to bluff the monkey with some lychees, but he wasn't giving in . We got a bit worried at this stage and started to conduct a plan if we couldn't get them back (maybe going home early) but luckily the monkey eventually gave into the lychees and gave the glasses back , although the frame was slightly chewed!
    We then went onto the famous Uluwatu beach and watched the waves and the surfers for a while . Never seen waves like this before , some of them must have been 4 metres high , people are just crazy surfing that !
    Padang padang beach was just up the road, it wasn't sandy and it was quite crowded , so we decided to move onto dreamland beach instead.
    We sat on the beach for a while then decided to brave the sea with the big waves even at the shore . The current was very strong and the white water really thrashed you about , so we didn't stay in there long !
    After a while, we braved the ride back to our hotel , along the way we spotted a rip curl outlet store and had a look there - a little breather from the heavy traffic .
    It was getting quite late and we still had to eat and do our theory for our surfing lesson the next day . We managed to get this done and have a nice chat with Jackie and Leigh for a while.
    We headed to bed at about 0130 after watching some rubbish reality TV on our tablet.    Read more

  • JGM TRAVELS 2023Bali 🇮🇩
    Day 3

    2. Surf lesson 1

    July 15, 2023 in Indonesia ⋅ ⛅ 27 °C

    Surf lesson day !
    Exciting day today , our first Bali surf lesson ! We had a ten min drive to our surf school and were on the beach for 1000.
    We had two others in our group and a really cool instructor called Dylan, who was so funny. He kept calling James Koko Lomell because of his height , but James wanted to be referred to as James Bond ( he got stuck with Koko Lomell 🤣) . We spent a while in the beach learning about how to carry your surf board , how to hold your board in the sea with waves and of course how to "pop up" once you've caught a wave.
    When we were stood up on our boards , Dylan went around all of us and tried to push us off to test our balance and core strength. Once we had this mastered we went into the sea to practice . We only practiced on white water today ( green waves look so scary and it's beyond our competence ) to get to grips with standing up and holding your balance for as long as you can . It was so much fun , James stood up on almost all of them , and I managed to stand up on about 5 of the waves , which is alright for someone as clumsy as me .
    It was so much fun but quite tiring as the current was strong and you have to battle through all the white water every time you went back into the sea. We were ready for a coffee afterwards!
    There were loads of nice restaurants close by , so we stopped off at what we thought was one of the cheaper ones - but they catch you out as they add on 21 % tax which isn't included in the price list .
    For some reason , neither of us have much of an appetite at the moment , so we shared a small meal between us .
    Poor James doesn't feel great today , so we headed back to our hotel room for a couple of hours to relax.
    We will head out later to have another swim, look at the local stores and get some food . Surfing starts at 11 tomorrow and we both cant wait.
    Sorry, no photos of the surfing, we will get some soon!    Read more

  • JGM TRAVELS 2023Bali 🇮🇩
    Day 4

    3. Surf lesson 2

    July 16, 2023 in Indonesia ⋅ ⛅ 27 °C

    We had a weird nights sleep and both woke up with fevers and body aches. However we had to ride through and we headed to the beach eager(ish) to get surfing again! Today we were learning how to turn correctly and controlling the board in Acceleration and Deceleration on the waves. It was great fun but the swell was big today so it was also slightly daunting with many rip currents forming. We have been taught how to use rip currents to our advantage when paddling back out so we don't worry as much when getting caught in them now.
    Our surf lesson has been cancelled for tomorrow as he thinks my face is getting too sunburnt.. I had said that this is how I have looked for 3 months now... 😂

    Afterwards we went for some food at a local authentic Australian bar🤣 (seems like there are more Aussies here than Indonesians). We had been told that we must go and check out the massive surf outlets which sell surf gear and clothing at massively reduced prices. However they had many bargains but not in our sizes which was abit annoying but was cool having a look around. We headed down the beach to watch sunset and seems like everyone else in Bali did the same as the beach was absolutely heaving which is a huge contrast to having the beaches to ourselves in Thailand. We stopped and were speaking to some local people, they seem so friendly, chatty and genuinely want to get to know you which has been great.    Read more

  • JGM TRAVELS 2023Bali 🇮🇩
    Day 5

    4. Day off today

    July 17, 2023 in Indonesia ⋅ 🌬 27 °C

    We had a day off surfing today to give James' skin a break from the sun and salt water. We were really craving some fruit so we went to a really cool little cafe just down the road from us that served smoothie bowls . I had a mango smoothie bowl and James had a berry smoothie bowl, they were really tasty but no where near as good as the smoothie bowls we had in Pokhara . They were also massively overpriced but we know not to go there again !
    Afterwards , we headed to some more surf factory outlet stores to have a look for a bikini for Grace ( as hers is all falling apart). Yet again , it was unsuccessful, so we decided to look at some of the high Street stores and instantly found a bikini in the right size.
    We went past the Bali Bomb Memorial and stopped to have a look. Al queda blew up 2 nightclubs in 2002 and killed 202 people. 28 were Brits, 90 were Australian. We had no idea that Bali was subjected to such attacks and found out that they tried to attack again in 2005 with a car bomb this time but luckily it didn't have as many casualties as in 2002.
    Afterwards we went and sat on the beach for a while . James rented a surf board and went surfing for an hour or so. I was still feeling quite run down and achey so I didn't go in again . Also my board rash on my legs is starting to look pretty bad , so probably a good idea to give my skin a break .
    We went back to the hotel and had a dip in the swimming pool , the swimming pool is the only nice thing about our hotel 🤣.
    We had both worked up an appetite for the first time in a while , so headed to a lovely Italian restaurant about 10 mins away .
    The food was lovely as the pasta was fresh and homemade .
    We drove home afterwards and chilled for a while before going to bed .
    Surf lesson number three tomorrow !    Read more

  • JGM TRAVELS 2023Bali 🇮🇩
    Day 6

    5. Surf lesson 3

    July 18, 2023 in Indonesia ⋅ 🌬 28 °C

    We had a lunchtime start for surfing today. So headed to a local cafe for Croissants and smoothies for breakfast. We took the short moped ride to the surf school and got set up. One of the tutors has noticed that Grace although being right handed is actually Goofy rider, meaning she surfs with her right leg forward instead of her left. This meant that Grace needed to go back and retrain herself to stand up the other way, this will benefit Grace long term as she will be in a much stronger position and will make the board easier to control in the future. James carried on trying to master turning on the waves and catching green waves and managed to execute it on some of the smaller ones.
    After wards we tried to rent surfboards but were told by surf school that it's very dangerous for us to do so as the tide is so low. So instead we headed to Michael Bar as Michael himself is awesome and it was a nice place to sit on the beachfront and have a coconut and beer. We watched the surfers getting mauled by the waves and had some dinner early as tomorrow morning we have to be back at the surf school for 5.30am. It's going to bloody kill us 😂😂
    Hopefully we will have some surfing pictures to share with you soon as our instructor takes them every session to discuss our board positions, we are going to wait till we have finished the lessons and pick the best ones as you have to pay per shot. 9    Read more

  • JGM TRAVELS 2023Bali 🇮🇩
    Day 7

    6. Surf lesson 4

    July 19, 2023 in Indonesia ⋅ ☀️ 28 °C

    Surf lesson 4

    Early start today , we were up at 0515 to get to the beach for 05:45 , it was painful as probably had about 4 hours sleep -especially with all the club music blasting out all night .
    It was still dark when we were on the beach and started surfing when the sun was rising , which was really cool .
    The green waves were massive so could only stay in the white water which was quite shallow . I just needed to concentrate on perfecting standing up the goofy way and maintaining my balance. It was really frustrating as I automatically wanted to stand up on my right foot first , but I got there eventually. I just kept reminding myself that James has been surfing on and off since he was 14 so naturally I wouldn't be at his level .
    Afterwards we headed back to our hotel and started to discuss where to move onto next . The couple next door -called keirnan and Elena overheard us and came to give us some advice .
    We ended up chatting with them for ages and decided to go out for lunch together. Keirnan and Elena live in Brighton , Keirnan does WWE wrestling (!!!) and Elena was a nurse in a recovery ward . Like us , they have both quit their jobs to come travelling. It was so nice talking to Elena as a fellow nurse, as she too had to work permanent nights for years to save up for this trip .
    We actually spent about 12 hours just chatting to Keirnan and Elena and ended up going out for dinner together too before they caught their flight to the Phillipines .
    It was such a shame we had met them on the day they were leaving.
    We tried to have an early night before another early start tomorrow 😴.    Read more

  • JGM TRAVELS 2023Bali 🇮🇩
    Day 8

    7. Surf lesson 5 - onto Ubud

    July 20, 2023 in Indonesia ⋅ ⛅ 27 °C

    Last day of surfing today, another 5.30am start, we made it to the beach before sunrise. Today was our last day of applying our skills which we had learnt over the last week. Level 5 surfing, today it clicked with Grace riding goofy and she caught many waves which was great. They noticed that James was getting every waves so swapped me to a shorter board to push me more and said that I should be riding hard boards now and ready for tackling the monsters at the back... I am not so sure yet! We have both improved so much. It was so great to see Grace have so much fun surfing and now she has caught the waves more she has got that buzz I got on my first few waves, you feel at one with nature and it makes you feel invincible for the seconds you are riding the swell. We bought the pictures from the week as you can probably tell on penguins which was cool.
    After the lesson we headed to Gloria Jean for a full English to celebrate and I must say it was probably the worst breakfast in history. Afterwards we packed up our stuff ready to leave Kuta and go to Ubud.
    We have decided to bypass Canggu for now as its quite built up and touristy like Kuta and we want to attempt to find a more authentic version of Bali. We had a 1 1/2 taxi ride, which we chatted all the way with our lovely taxi driver and learnt so much about the culture and what its like to live in Bali. We arrived at Ubud and we're greeted with coconut trees, temples, monkeys and loads of market stalls. This felt much more like what we imagined Bali to be like, we were so happy to get away from rowdy Kuta and we are super excited to get exploring tomorrow.
    We have decided to stay in a homestay in Ubud and our room looks like an entrance to a temple- it is so cool (it's the picture with me poking my head out above) all for less than £10 per night!    Read more

  • JGM TRAVELS 2023Bali 🇮🇩
    Day 9

    8. Ubud

    July 21, 2023 in Indonesia ⋅ ☀️ 27 °C

    Today we got up and headed to The Sacred Monkey Forest. It was a mile or so walk from our Homestay so we had an opportunity to explore Ubud on the way. We headed down looking in all the quirky shops along the way, we wish we had more money and space in our bags to buy more souvenirs but we must refrain as we still have some of the trip left. We finally arrived at the Monkey Forest, as we walked in there was monkeys literally everywhere... Funnily enough 😂. Within about 2 minutes I was trying to photograph a monkey and another (wet & skanky) Monkey decided to jump onto me and start ramsacking our rucksack. I quickly became the entertainment of about 30 people all surrounding me taking photos. Great start 🤣. The monkey found some food and quickly ran off with it🐒. Weirdly I was told off by the staff as apparently my bag excited the monkey. Despite many people carrying their rucksacks in. We carried on through the forest and I felt incredibly jumpy after this, we saw thousands of monkeys all ages and loads of babies which was cute. However some Monkeys werent very nice and saw 1 person scratched by one and another who had been bitten. The Monkeys were aggressive and made you feel jumpy to be around. After an hour or so we made our way to the exit, relieved to have not been bitten. It was cool to do, but not 100% sure it was an enjoyable experience 😂.
    Afterwards we were heading to the Ubud Palace, Bali interestingly has 8 Kings, in different regions and this was site of the King of Ubud. The palace was gorgeous itself and felt very traditionally Balinese in the way it was designed. We explored here for an hour and as we were leaving we were offered tickets to a traditional Balinese fire dance. We obviously brought 2 as this sounded ace. That evening we had some lovely Indonesian food and then headed to the show. It was set in a temple and felt very authentic and cultural. The lights dimmed and the fire was blessed before the show. All of a sudden about 150 topless men came out and started chanting around the fire, they were narrating a historic events, which due to being Balinese we didn't really understand but it was so enjoyable and it felt like we had stepped back in time 500 years. There were monkeys costumes, Kings and ladies in traditional Balinese outfits. The show was ace and you were completely obsorbed by what was going on. Towards the end of the show, the fire was knocked over spreading the coals everywhere, out came a man with a straw skirt and a horse head (don't worry Rosie it wasn't real). He proceeded to kick the coals around barefoot and ended up sitting on his bum on the coals whilst shuffling about. He also then ate some coals whilst spitting the embers everywhere, he looked like he was in genuine pain but carried on anyway. It was such a finale to the show and was like nothing we had seen before. It was so cool! We headed back to the Homestay as we had another busy day tomorrow. What a great day, Ubud is so much more like we imagined Bali to be.    Read more

  • JGM TRAVELS 2023Bali 🇮🇩
    Day 10

    9. Ubud

    July 22, 2023 in Indonesia ⋅ ⛅ 25 °C

    Today we decided to visit the famous Tegallalang rice fields . We grabbed a taxi from our homestay and had a very scenic drive there . When we arrived , the place was extremely busy , luckily people seemed more interested with taking pictures of themselves on the Bali swings than the rice fields , so we managed to get out of the crowds quite quickly .
    The rice fields were beautiful , we walked a fair distance around them and the trekking path took us through some smallholdings - we saw lots of chickens and some cows too . We finally felt like we were experiencing authentic Bali culture , with locals wading through the rice fields wearing banana leaf hats.
    It took us about 90 mins to walk around the rice fields , we grabbed an iced brown sugar coffee ( tastes like creme brule!) afterwards and met our taxi driver .
    On the way back , he dropped us off at the Bali Pulina coffee plantation - home to the famous Kopi Luwak coffee. Kopi luwak, also known as civet coffee, is a coffee that consists of partially digested coffee cherries, which have been eaten and defecated by the Asian palm civet. The cherries are fermented as they pass through a civet's intestines, and after being defecated with other fecal matter, they are collected, dried and roasted . The coffee tastes very strong , but actually contains much less caffeine than usual coffee. It's also the world's most expensive coffee due to the process.
    They had two tame Civets there , one of them was playing around in the garden and the lady that worked there picked it up and let us stroke him . They are so cute and comical , I think it's my new favourite animal !
    At the end of the tour , we had a coffee and tea tasting session . The coffee was just amazing , my personal fave was the avocado flavoured coffee. James' was the vanilla and coconut coffee. Of course we had to try the Kopi Luwak coffee too and it was actually really tasty yet very stong ! ( I know the concept is gross !)
    We went a different way back to Ubud , with rice fields either side of the road and lots of temples .
    We packed our bags back at the hotel and spent over an hour looking for somewhere to eat . It was so busy everywhere as there is a dance festival for the dead starting tomorrow in Ubud- which we are gutted to be missing .
    We went back to our homestay and went to bed quite soon afterwards , we are getting up at 6 to catch our ferry to Gili Trawangan- we are very excited!    Read more

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