Indonesia: Bali and Gili T

Canggu: Once off the ferry, the bus to Canggu took about 6 hours - twice as long as expected due to the huge volume of traffic after several days of no one being allowed to travel! We made it to our hostel at 10pm, and immediately went to sleep. We spent most of the first two days in Canggu just chilling by the pool at our hostel and trying the various foods around town - lots of fresh smoothies and various salads. Very vegan, much to Will's dismay!

The town was only made up of three small 'main streets' perpendicular to the beach so it didn't take long to explore. We left to travel to Ubud on day 3 - but not before we'd been for a surf and had a yummy post-surf brunch.

Ubud: We took an Uber to Ubud so we didn't have to spend the whole day on a bus again, so we arrived early afternoon and spent a few hours by the pool. We had planned to spend the next morning the same way as we could only hire bikes from 12pm for some reason, then we were going to head down into Ubud town.

Our plans were put on hold for a few hours as we had a thunderstorm and were forced to retreat to our room, but around 4pm we managed to get the guesthouse's free shuttle into town. We went first to the Monkey Forest which was really cute as predictably there were monkeys everywhere! People were selling bananas so tourists could hold a banana above their head and let the monkeys climb all over them. We also saw lots of very cute baby monkeys.

After this we were going to do the ridgeway walk but as it was almost sunset we abandoned this plan and found a small cafe where we had our cheapest meal in days! Ubud didn't seem to be as 'vegan' as Canggu but there were still lots of similar style restaurants; however this cafe was a nice change of local curries and other less 'raw and natural' foods. We stayed in Ubud one more night before being transferred the next morning by bus and boat over to the island of Gili T.

Gili T. Our first impression of Gili T was how old-style it was! There aren't any vehicles on the island so horse and cart is the main mode of transport. We had to dodge many of these while walking to the hostel - they weren't stopping for anyone!

Once we'd got to the hostel, we spent a few hours by the pool then walked up to Sunset Point and back down to the beach to watch the sunset over the Rinjani mountain range on the neighbouring island of Lombok (which was absolutely stunning!).

The next day we tried to book a trip to Komodo island but the only trip offered was 3 nights long, which would have meant missing other parts of Bali, so we booked onto a snorkelling trip for the day after instead. After being in the water for two minutes we saw our first turtle! This one disappeared pretty quickly but a few minutes later we saw another one which hung around for a while. Sadly, we'd left the GoPro on the boat so didn't get any photos.

We got back mid-afternoon and booked a boat back to Bali (our bartering skills were really tested on this one; the original price given to us was double what it had cost to get there!), then got some food at the hostel and had a few drinks whilst planning more of our trip. Julie won the hostel's Instagram 'photo of the day' competition and got a free beer, so naturally that meant Will having another one too - to be polite, of course.

Padang Bai: We arrived back onto Bali at midday after a long wait for the boat on Gili T. The beach was full of people and no one had any idea which boat was for which island, but we made it somehow!

As we had the whole afternoon, we rented a bike to visit the chocolate factory and lotus lagoon. Just our luck - the chocolate factory wasn't open, except for a tiny coffee shop and some giant swings so we sat on a swing for a while before heading back to lotus lagoon... and realising the lotuses weren't in bloom! Not the most productive afternoon, but it was fun riding around Padang Bai.

We continued down the coast to White Sand beach, where we had a really nice beachfront dinner and watched a local boy pushing his younger siblings into the waves. They seemed to be enjoying it and it kept us amused!

The next morning we had a quick visit to Blue Lagoon beach for quick swim and lunch before waiting for our shuttle to Kuta.

Kuta: Our shuttle bus from Padang Bai was meant to leave at 1pm, but as the driver was waiting for one more person to fill up his car we ended up leaving at 2.30pm... without anyone else anyway! When we finally got to Kuta we were told that we couldn't check in as the people in our room weren't checking out until 6pm, so we went for a swim in the pool and lounged around until we could get into our room.

The next couple of days were spent mainly at the pool, leaving occasionally to walk around the town for lunch, check out the shopping malls and one morning we went for a surf (so much better than Canggu for beginners like us!).

We also found a Harry Potter-themed bar so obviously had to stop in for a drink!

Our flight to Cairns wasn't until 1am, so on the last day we had plenty of time to have one final Indian for dinner (our most frequently-eaten meal throughout Asia) and one last Bintang before heading to the airport.

Accommodation: Canggu - Castaway Hostel, 3 nights, 120,000 IR per night for a bed in a dorm room Ubud - Kasih Sayang House, 2 nights, 200,000 IR per night for a private double room. Gili T - Flipside Bungalows, 2 nights, 120,000 IR per night for a bed in a dorm room. Padang Bai - Harmony Guesthouse, 1 night, 216,000 IR for a private twin room. Kuta - Tunjung Bali Inn, 4 nights, 250,000 IR per night for a private double room.

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