Bout of the Bali Belly!

Lack of updates are due to me being bed bound for a few days after falling victim to the "Bali Belly" and I'm still fighting it off 6 days later!! I reckon it was this "Frosted Algae" stuff I tried while being adventurous and have regretted it since.

Bali So Far...

So we left the hustle and bustle of Kuala Lumpur and jetted off to Bali making our first stop in Kuta. We were a little surprised how commercialised it all was, a surfers paradise however. The beach was lovely during the times I wasn't pestered by hawkers, old crinkly masseurs or guys trying to sell bow and arrows no less. After a couple of days chilling out at the beach and around the pool we made our way over to the other side of the island.

Once at Sanur we instantly noticed it had a more chilled out vibe and the beach was less overcrowded. People trying to sell us transport are in abundance and the constant pipping of horns does start to grate. Despite this we have had a lovely day on the beach where we began to plan our tour of Bali.

Yesterday we began the day by watching a Balinese Barong and Keris Dance. An hour long performance involving dance and music (I reckon they could have condensed it into about half this time as I felt it did drag on a bit.) We then returned to the car + driver we hired to taxi us about for the day where he proceeded to take us onto the elephant cave. It was here I adorned a fetching sarong and could't help but feel a little disappointed by the temple as it was pretty small and hard to discover. It was then onto Kawi Agung - a shrine created at the bottom of a deep valley. It was ok to get down to, but a mission to climb up from trying at the same time to refrain from the persistant hawkers.

Wayan our driver guided us onto an amazing view of the volcano Mt. Batur where we sat and had some drinks and admired the view. As we headed back down the island we stopped off at some padi fields to admire their distinctive formations within the landscape. It was then through Ubud the arts and crafts capital before we were introduced to the Monkey Forest. The forest is home to many Macaques and three temples. This is where we ended the day and slumped back into our room exhausted.

Today we headed down the beach to the Sanur Village Festival. It took a little longer than expected (1 hour) but on our arrival were welcomed by the sight of hundreds of spectacular flying kites. The arena beckoned us where we saw a bonsai tree competition, many international food delights and a big decorated events stage.

The walk back presented an unexpected sight in the form of a spikey starfish that I picked up with my flip flops and saved as it appeared beached. We're off for another adventure tommorow exploring the rest of the island.

Malaysian Mischief

Last night we topped off our day at the "old china cafe" which was recommended by the guy from our hostel. This place retained it's original prewar structure and decoration despite the local government trying to get rid of old businesses. The philosophy of the cafe believed in maintaining the old Chinese community spirit and strives the keep the place open, which I'm glad they do as the food was lovely!

We started off with some spring rolls that I reckon had something in that didn't agree with me as I immediately got a sore throat. Fortunately it didn't last and I was ok for our second starter which was fried anchovies with a chilli dip, yum! I then went for the most expensive thing on the menu, a whole seabass in a gorgeous chilli sauce and it was only about 6 pounds.

Today we set off for the KL lake gardens and first stumbled upon the butterfly park. Here we found an array of dancing butterflies and snapping turtles. Also an unlikely snake with two little fellas that were clearly his lunch. After a giant beetle exhibition on exit of the park we went onto the KL bird park.

This place was the largest walk through aviary in the world and housed many varieties of birds, a particular favourite was the this little white and yellow nervous bird of which i forget the name. I did manage to get a snap of him when he was off guard however. After a thorough trounce around we ended up at the bird show featuring five Macaws. Stunts observed included scooter and bike racing, a tight rope unicycle ride and puzzle solving.

It was then time for a bite to eat so we proceeded to the Hornbill Cafe where we got stuck into a plate of "Nasi Goreng". This consisted of chicken satay, fried chicken, fried egg, prawn crackers and a special spicy rice all served on a banana leaf.

We then perused the orchid garden for free as it only had an hour left until it closed, which was a bonus as we only stayed in there for a bout 30 mins before making the trek back to our hostel.

It's an early get up tomorrow as the departure time for our flight to Bali is 9:30am and I need to sort out the weight distribution between my suitcase and hand luggage to avoid incurring a fine.

Kuala Lumpur

I managed to get us some extra leg room on the flights but it meant that we ended up next to a lady with a baby who repeatedly sang the same annoying songs even when the baby was asleep. The best bit was when she kept clapping and saying "shush......shush" when the baby wasn't making a sound!!!

Anyway after a 12 hour flight, hardly any sleep and also tipping my dinner tray on the floor during the flight we made a quick change at Singapore before arriving at Kuala Lumpur Airport, where we got on the train to a station which is right next to our accommodation. By this time it was getting on to about 10pm after we had dumped our stuff, so went for a quick walk around Chinatown market which is just around the corner.

On our first full day here we got a bus out to the northern suburb of the city to visit the Batu Caves, which was a huge cave system complete with hindu statues and mischevious monkeys with the odd chicken making an appearance. After going up and down 279 steps we grabbed a coconut to guzzle as although the weather is completely overcast it is still really hot.

It took a bit of a trek to get the return bus back to the city as we couldn't find the bus stop but managed to hail one down in the end, which we jumped off once we saw the KL Tower as this was our next destination. Unfortunately it looked closer than it was and due to the detour and bad directions we got, we eventually got there 2 hours later after doing a lap around the tower and forest to find the entrance.

The view from the top of the tower would have been great if it wasn't for all the clouds blocking most of the view. We did get included in our ticket a trip around this animal zoo park thing and a "Formula 1 Simulation" which was basically a computer hooked up to a screen and some speakers put inside a racing car frame...we both came last.

It was then on to the Petronas Towers which were close by, but futher dissapointment was afoot as on our arrival we found out that all the allocated tickets for today were gone :( hopefully we'll get tickets for tomorrow but it will mean having to drag ourselves out of bed early to make sure we bag some.

It's nearly dinner time so we're going to try and find some Malaysian treats!

4 Weeks Later - 8 Countries, 12 Cities, 50 Mosquito Bites, 16 Blisters and About 500 Beers

Well after successfully executing our trip from our hostel in Rome back to the comfort of our houses I am absolutely knackered, still itching from mosquito bites, have a bit of a beer/food baby and am minus a sock!

I will probably spend the next day sorting out my photos and editing the videos we took on our trip, so keep your eyes peeled for our Robot Dancing video coming soon x

Rome Photos

All Trains Lead to Rome

Our first task when arriving in Rome was to find the 310 bus, which according to our directions took us to our accommodation 6 stops away. We did wait 6 stops but I'm guessing the bus didn't stop at everyone as we ended up getting off at the wrong stop. Fortunately after asking for directions we were at our hostel in 5 or so minutes.

On our arrival we met up with a guy called Sam who was staying in our room and decided we would go on the pub crawl in Rome as a couple of girls staying in the hostel had been on it the previous night and said it was a good laugh so we thought we may as well. The meeting place was the Spanish steps in the city at 9pm and by the time we left the hostel it was 8:45 so we were cutting it pretty close as our hostel was a bit out of the way. Well this ended up being a mission and a half, as well as killing our feet trying to speed walk to get there in time we got lost and didn't arrive until 9:30.

There were so many people at the Spanish steps that we had no idea if anyone from the pub crawl was still here but an Ozzie guy managed to spot us and took us to the first bar where it was as much Carlsberg you can drink and an unlimited supply of pizza (This was a bonus as we had not eaten yet). This Ozzie guy told us we were gonna get absolutely smashed and it would be off the scale etc etc and that "Eating was Cheating" haha - we ignored him because he was an idiot and we were more sensible than that ;-)!

The pizza was terrible, it was like those cheapo Margarita ones you get from Aldi or something, it was free anyway so I couldn't complain and I was starving. So we drank a few bottles of beer ate some pizza and then went on a mammoth walk to the next bar which was seriously about a 45 minute walk. The club that we got too was pretty cool, although Matt got a round of 3 drinks which set him back 30 euros!! ouch!

After we out danced everyone it was off on another trek to a Boat where the party continued. This boat had a bar and a dance floor so it was all good. This is also where they held a wet t-shirt competition for the girls which was amusing yet partially nauseating due to the kind of girls which took part as you can no doubt imagine. It wasn't too long until we'd had enough as yet again most of the people were morons, we really didn't learn our lesson from the last pub crawl we went on.

We got up at about 11am after a good lye in and decided to take a walk around the city and see the main sites. I marked these on my map and drew lines on it to remember where we had walked and seen, other wise we would have probably walked around in circles or got lost again. Everything we saw was amazing and just so huge it was unbelievable. After a good days walking around we went back to the hostel as we got a free pasta dinner, which turned out to be really nice and definitely worth ditching a meal out in a restaurant for as it was free.

Quite a few people staying at the hostel came back for dinner so we all decided to go out for some drinks together and the woman behind reception was clocking off so she said she would take us to this other hostel where there was a bar with cheap drinks!

The following day we went to see one of the new seven wonders of the world - The Colosseum. We had been told to go and get our tickets from Palatino, which is a big hill in Rome that was the city centre of ancient Rome. The queue here was much smaller than the one for the Colosseum and the ticket allowed us to get in there as well so it was a bonus. The ruins at Palatino were awesome and the Colosseum was beyond belief, I was hard to believe we were actually standing in it.

It was then off to get some lunch and find a church we had been told about that had loads of human bones in it which sounded particularly interesting. We got off at the right metro station and found the nearest place to get a big beer and some good food, after which I asked the waiter where the place with bones was - to which he replied "boats?" and made a rowing action haha! After I set him straight he pointed to a building right next to us so we didn't have to go far at all.

This was a Crypt where a monk had decided it would be a nice thing to create a memorial to the 400 or so dead monks out of the bones. It was pretty spooky and rather bizarre to see all of these human remains stacked and placed to form a gruesome kind of art, it does need to be seen to be believed.

That was enough for us, we had done our walking for the day and it was roasting hot so we went back to chill out for the rest of the afternoon at the hostel with pizza and beer on the sofa padding the time by watching a few films back to back.

Our last full day had to include a trip to the Vatican City, where we went up to the top of the dome on the Basilica having to walk up hundreds of steps in a narrow space where I had to lean my head over to one side so that I could get up there. After a painstaking number of steps being in a really hot and confines space we made it to the top where it was jam packed with people who had either just got up there or that were queueing to get back down. It was good to be able to see over the whole of Rome and we managed to get some good scenery photos.

We were going to check out the Sistine Chapel but we found out that it had closed at 1pm as it was a Saturday so we missed out. It was lunchtime anyway so we hunted down a good restaurant and sat down for a feed before grabbing a Gelato and heading back to the hostel.

The Gelato (ice creams) here are amazing!!!! I kept going back for more as they tasted soo good! I wish ice cream tasted that good at home. After a short nap we finished off the pizza we had left over from the night before, got another Gelato and went out for drinks with a gang of people from the hostel.

We had been recommended to go to an area of Rome where there were some cool bars and had to get the bus there as there was not a nearby train station and it was too far to walk. After walking around aimlessly trying to find this place we ended up giving in and sat down at a nearby bar which had relatively cheap drinks and spent the rest of the evening there.

The plan was to get the bus back but we realised that although the tickets were 24 hour tickets they actually expired at midnight so were were a bit stuck as there was no nearby metro station either. After a bit of debating we decided we would walk back, which in the end took us well over an hour as it we were the other side of Rome.

I quite enjoyed the walk back as we got to see some awesome sights at night, but also passed some strange people such as Transvestite prostitutes who we swiftly walked passed. By the time we got in it was about 4am and I didn't end up going to bed until 4:45 and din't get to sleep for a while after due to snoring and my mozzie bites itching like hell. This wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't set the alarm to get up at 6:45 in order to get to the bus station in time to get our coach to the airport.

Florence Photos

Florence

Now I had got the directions to our hostel in Florence off the internet and had them on my iPod - sorted!! That was until I found out that when I turned off my iPod at night it had wiped the temporary memory so that the webpage I had up with the instructions on had dissapeared arghhh!!

So once we got to florence we had to find out where we had to go as I had not written anything down - sometimes it's better to have a hard copy rather then relying on technology, I will learn.

Matt sat with the bags while I went off to find either a wireless hotspot where I cound get on the internet or an internet cafe. I had no luck with the hotspot but did manage to find an internet cafe so I went back to get some money as I had left my wallet in my bag. When I returned to the internet place I was then told a new Italian law meant I had to show my passport which was also in my bag. So after another trip back I finally got on the computer and wrote down the directions on a piece of paper.

It was a good walk to the hostel and we were baking in the heat, we stopped off to check the directions as where I thought it should be was a brick wall. As it happens we literally stopped off outside the hostel it just wasn't that obvious. When we got inside we were greeted by the woman who ran the hostel called Sylvia who had the biggest smile ever and was so enthusiastic about everything it was a pleasant change from most of the places we have stayed at. Better still this hostel was amazing, everything was nice and clean and spacious.

We had lockers in our rooms which was kool, though after accidently opening the wrong locker I realised that my key opened all the lockers on my row haha! That didn't exactly put my mind at ease but I was hoping that no one would bother trying a different locker with their key unless they forgot which locker was theirs like myself. After the essential shower we went off to have a look around and get something to eat! We found a really nice place called Za Za and stuffed ourselves until we struggles to get our of our seats, Infact I couldnt finish everything I was served it was huge. It was then off to look around the city, have a beer and chill out on the bridge listening to some street performances.

The day after we made sure we squeezed in all the sights and a few museums before having to get our train to Rome at 4pm which gave us plenty of time to give Florence the once over.