Week 26.2 - Seminyak

So our first Uber experience, or non experience, was a disaster! We booked our taxi for 11.30am at 7.30pm the night before, but 5 minutes before it was due to arrive we got a notification saying that it was cancelled due to a lack of drivers….erm, surely they should of reserved one with all that notice! Anyway, we rebooked for 15 minutes time, and double the fare, but again they cancelled 10 minutes after it was due to arrive. I mean come on Uber we have to check out now! We were going to try again but the cheeky twats now wanted 5 x the original fare, well you all know where they could stick that! Thankfully, the lovely lady at our homestay managed to arrange a driver for us and let us stay in the room for an extra hour, what a babe! Shame the price went from 110,000 rupiah to 300,000 though eh?

The journey from Ubud to Seminyak should have taken around an hour and a half, but our drivers snazzy shortcuts and shite traffic meant that we got there in…..2 hours and 15 minutes, apparently it was down to airport traffic, Kyle blamed bad over taking. All these delays meant that once we’d checked into our new hotel, Budhastay, refreshed and eaten that we didn’t have time for a day at the beach, this left me mega pissed off. Especially when my food was shit too, I ordered the crispy noodles they came raw! They’d literally opened a packet of noodles, put them on a plate and added a bit of chicken and veg. Cheers, nice one guys! Good job I got an ice cream on the way home then isn’t it!?

My nana had been poorly for a while, but I found out whilst we were in Kuching, Borneo that she had taken a turn for the worse. My immediate thought was to jump on a plane and go home, not only to see her but to support my family. But after a conversation with Kyle and numerous exchanges with my mum I made one of the hardest decisions of my life, and decided to carry on with the journey. Not only for myself, but because it is what my nana wanted me to do. Unfortunately, on our first evening in Seminyak I got the heartbreaking news that my nana had passed away, peacefully and painlessly in her sleep. I am distraught she was and is one of my favourite people in the whole world, I'll miss her singing, dancing and laughter, but I know in my heart that she’ll be happy now with my grandad and they’ll both be watching my adventures, and sometimes thinking, “what the hell is she doing?”. It’s hard and it’s a little bit surreal, it has made me miss my mum 100 times more but I know that she is strong, and that my huge family will all take care of each other. I’m just sorry that I’m not there with them. 

To keep me occupied the next day we headed to the beach and Kyle actually let me have another sun lounger! That’s two in less than a month (and 2 in 6 whole months), and it was actually to keep me quiet whilst he surfed, for 3 whole hours! I didn’t mind though, Double six beach is actually stunning, the sand is a perfectly soft golden brown, with no coral…winning, and the sea is cool and crystal clear, with the added bonus of the waves breaking far from the shore so you don’t have to fear having your head taken off by a surfboard. I even had a little go at body boarding, but after I got water in my eye I once again saw my arse and went back to baking on my lounger. I’ve had a bad stomach again, I have no idea whats triggered it but for about 2 weeks I’ve been best friends with the loo again. Shame Kyle wants to share my pal, turns out drinking half the sea gives you a runny bum too…what a pair! So it was an afternoon spent chilling and catching up with Celebs Go Dating.

Seminyak, like Kuta and most other tourist destinations, has streets lined with tat stores and so far on our adventure we’ve been pretty good at ignoring them, but somehow after tea that evening we were lured in and made not one, but two purchases. Kyle bought ANOTHER hat, I suppose he did give his smelly blue one away, and I got a nice playsuit ready for our nights out in Australia. It was my first attempt at bargaining, I normally leave it to Kyle, but I don’t think I did too bad, it went from the “locals price” of 250,000 rupiah to 150,000 rupiah pretty quickly, though Kyle thinks we could of gotten a better deal…maybe next time he’ll do the bartering then.

Another day, another sunbathing session and a surfboard for Kyle. We go to the same guys each day and they’re really friendly, rather than ripping Kyle off with a 300,000 rupiah surf lesson, they went out with him and gave him some handy tips for free…he’ll be surfing like a pro in no time. All this relaxing makes me hungry, so for tea that evening we opted for cheat night and went to a restaurant called, MaCheese, so you can guess what we had to eat there! It was bloody delicious, even if we were left with bloated bellies and stomach ache afterwards.

Kyle was going to pass on a surfboard on our third beach day as the waves were crashing in the high tide, but after twenty minutes of observing he caved and rented a board once again. This left me alone with my new friend, Bruce, the dog. He sits in the shadow of my sun lounger and will only drink water from the bottle, and is named Bruce after Bruce Wayne as his pointy ears make him look like a bat. Kyle says we can’t keep him though as Australia won’t let him in.  

We took a trip to the chemist after tea that evening. My request for something for a bad stomach was met with, “Ah, Bali belly”, bit worrying that it’s an actual thing that the locals are aware of as well as foreigners. I got pissed off in the chemist, for everything you needed they’d try and push something else you didn’t want to go with it. With Imodium it was some herbs, for suncream it was vitamin E, god knows what they would of offered if we needed toothpaste or soap!

We’ve met some weirdos in our time, but a lot of the people we’ve encountered in Bali have been fitnessed obsessed, beyond the call of press ups on the beach and the two at breakfast this morning we’re a sorry story. Not only had they brought their own chia seeds to add to their smoothies, but they also had sandwich bags of protein, weight gain and various other shit to add to their coffee…you’re on fucking holiday, relax, have a burger!! You would never catch me adding something like that to my iced coffee or watermelon shake, weirdos!

Today has been spent like the rest of the week, down the beach with our new surfer pals. We even had lunch at the beach side warung, though I’ll let you know how that affects my stomach…it may have been one of the riskiest places we’ve chosen for food. Tomorrow we’ll take a taxi back into Kuta for our final two nights in Bali before heading to Australia. I’m mega excited to see our pal, Luke, though nowhere near as excited as Kyle, he hasn’t slept for days, but I’m also sad to be leaving behind our little Asian adventure, so we’ll be making the most of our last two days for sure.

Love Carrie xxx