Finding Nemo (Steve)

09/1/2005
Well ,we survived my driving in Bali (actually, I'm very good, a little modest and getting a tan too) and spent a night in Ubud which is in the center (my god thats American spelling, whats happening??) of Bali, its very nice and we braved ridiculus humidity and went into the Monkey Forest. We found them very cute until they threw a coconut at us, nasty monkeys!! There are temples in the forest and its almost mystical, like an old Aztec site, or the set of a Lara Croft movie with a deep gorge and stream making it really humid., huge vines (tarzan tyle, but didnt try it) and bats for good measure. It was worth the drive, will send pictures by email when I can.

After sweating buckets we need a beer, we're so hot it doesn't help so cold showers are the order of the day. We had found the Gusti homestay earlier in the day which is set away from the main street and feels isolated, which after Kuta is very nice indeed. Sadly, Paul got ill from his Salmon pasta at lunchtime, so we didnt see much more of him today, and sorry to say this Paul, but it makes a change from me being sick!!!

Meanwhile in our room we noticed a rather unpleasant odour, after investigation I found a decomposing, sizable bird under the bed (unknown species), after trying not to chuck up (if you'd smelt under there you would have too, yes all of you) we got it removed and tried to think about dinner. Somehow we managed to go over the road and consume an entire duck between the two of us, very nice too, for about 5quid.

10/1/2005
Not really early to rise as we have a comfy bed, something of a rarity these days. Thankfully Paul manages to rise but is still feeling a bit ruff, so much so that he keeps an empty bag in the car.......
We find our way (by luck) to the north coast and head for Lovina, and a really nice hotel that is stupidly close to the beech, the garden is 10 metres and I reckon our room is no more than 30!!! With recent events you cant help thinking........

The sea is so warm and clear, absolutely beautiful, we manage to kill two hours at sunset swimming around enjoy ourselves. Sian floats, I dont, anyone else have trouble floating in the sea?

Paul isnt up to going out so we go for dinner and get an early night, we are going on a boat at 6am to see Dolphins and then go snorkling on the Coral reef, hopefully we can find Nemo or the title to this is silly.......

11/01/2005

We have a knock on our door at 5.45am... ouch! We had both spent the night fighting off the mosqito's and other bugs in the room, so we were not really up for such an early start.
As soon as we got out of our room to see the beautiful calm (as in silky smooth) Bali sea we were feeling slightly better. The sun had just started to rise above the mountains. The sky and the sea had a beautiful pink shine to them.

We were in a small boat with 2 Australians who had come out in the boat to see the dolphns quite a few times. After about 30 minutes of chasing the dolphins we eventually see them quite close to our boat. They jump in 2's or 3's in perfect formation. I think they knew that we wanted to see them though as every time we got even vaguely close they disappeared only to reappear another 200 metres away! Out on the water was a fleet of fishing boats trying to catch tuna. The dolphins may well have been hiding as they didn't want to get caught up in the nets. We have an hour and a half in the boats and drop off the Aussies so we can go snorkling.

There are a lot of coral reefs just off the beech and they are so beautiful, we've never seen anything like it before and even with slightly iffy snorkling gear we love it. Shame I dont have an underwater camera really. I could show you all the pictures we could have got of Nemo and his dad, it does seem to be the case that flounders swim in twos!! We saw Blue Starfish lazing on the corals, and some big shouls of colourful fishes, Angel fish are really shy though, they didnt really want to come and say hello. You've all seen coral reefs etc on TV I'm sure, its even better in real life and even more colourful. Despite my 6am crumpieness, it was well worth getting up for, bring on the diving in Thailand!!!!

Spent the rest of the day driving back to Kuta, stopping en-route at Gitgit waterfalls in the mountains, they were absolutely gorgeous, and with Paul feeling better we enjoyed the break from the steep, twisty roads.