Senggigi, Lombok, Indonesia

Hey hey there,

What a wonderful place Indonesia is! We travelled (late as always) up from Kuta to Ubud 2 days ago, and had a lovely time wandering around. The hotel we were staying in - well 2 bungalows really, were run by a very friendly family, with a beautiful 7 year old girl called Tiara, who had a certain obsession with playing with a little chicken... surprised she didn't accidentally ring its neck, seeing as that is how she was often holding it... not surprisingly, it was rather loud! Breakfasts were delicious - tea/coffee, fruit salad and banana pancakes to set us up for the day, the mother even getting up early despite my protestations, in order to make us our breakfast before we caught the bus... the room was lovely and large, and the fan worked well. We really enjoyed relaxing for a few hours in the afternoon when it was too hot to do anything else - lots of reading done.

Ubud is lovely, although quite difficult to walk along the pavements which often have holes in, are uneven, have steep inclines to let cars through, and are scattered with daily offerings they seem to make here (very difficult not to inadvertently tread on one when walking along)... plus continuous offers of 'transport' or 'taksi' wear a little thin. But the town itself was lovely, and we discovered a brilliant little restaurant which did delicious food, and very very cheaply too. So meandered around the market until we were too hot and bothered and hassled, before heading to the monkey sanctuary. They were really cute, macaques, with lots of babies. The little ones looked so wrinkly they actually looked old - reminded me of the Benjamin Button film. The males were quite aggressive, and they weren't backward about jumping on you, or in Hayley's case, on her head. Very entertaining for me, also entertaining was when a wet monkey (he had been swimming) climbed up J's leg... but the best part was when a monkey pickpocketed J. He undid her bag (albeit not zipped up, but had a popper on it), and dug around for her purse, before scooting up on the entrance wall. Hilarious for Hayley and me, not so much for J. Bananas thrown at him were only caught and he put the purse between his feet to catch more bananas. Luckily a slingshot appeared and he dropped the thing. Very very funny to watch...

Yesterday we went diving on the SS Liberty. It was a US cargo ship that was sunk by the Japanese in WW2, but was actually sunk below the water when the volcano exploded, raining rocks down on it in 1963. It was a brilliant day. G'day, our guide and dive master, collected us from our hotel at 7.45am, and put us into a comfy car/van thing to take us to the site, 2 hours away. We found boxes of cakes on our seat, - this was after eating the delicious banana pancakes for breakfast and had unlimited bottles of soft drinks. Such luxuries for us, as we only normally drink water, and can't afford to buy cakes, as they don't fill us up for long enough. The drive was gorgeous, through rice paddy fields, and along roads which always seem to have some sort of building on their side. We had a very nice hotel as our base for the dive, and it was beautiful, with palm trees overhead. The boat is 20 metres from the beach, so we were able to walk down off the beach and dive like that, rather than using a boat. The dive itself was lovely, seeing a stingray, garden eels, lots of nemos, groper the size of me, stonefish... the wreck is growing its own coral reef system on it, and give it another few years, it will only improve. For me I much preferred the Yongala, but this was also fantastic, and so relaxing as the water was 31 degrees celsius, and G'day was such a professional, competent, friendly and helpful person. Also fantastic because we were the only people in the group! We also managed to go inside the wreck (wonder how much longer people will be able to do that), and fed some fish bananas. They weren't small fish, and it was really funny to feed them, especially when G'day put a banana down my BCD (inflatable jacket) and they surrounded me... But I especially loved the HUGE school of silvery bluey fish swirling past, they were 10 inches long, and amazing to see them swimming in formation... such a perfect day.

We travelled for about 11 hours today to get to Senggigi in Lombok. It is fine, but nothing spectacular, although the sunset in the harbour/beach was beautiful. There were lots of funny boats on it, and we finally realised that we had arrived in Asia. We are heading to Gilly Air tomorrow morning (where the internet is slow and expensive, so don't worry if we don't check in for a couple of days, although my mobile is still working. Unfortunately I cannot retrieve voicemails on it if I miss your call, but texts work fine). We are being taken on the dive boat, (missing out running the gauntlet in a very hectic port with lots of annoying men), and will do 2 dives, finishing our PADI Advanced training (hopefully). Not sure how long we will spend there - long enough until we get bored of beautiful beaches and want to get back to Kuta. Will be nice to be away from the traffic! Although grabbing a lift on the back of a scooter was fun today...

Anyway, will be in contact soon, but lots of love,
Alice xxx