Day 2: Kuta, Bali, Indonesia

Since we did nothing on Day 1, we were determined to finally make it to this Kota beach that everybody had been talking about.  After being startled awake by the breakfast being delivered to the door at 7:30 a.m., took a leisurely time to get up and around. In a tragic turn of events – NO COFFEE!! How am I supposed to make it without coffee?  I clearly have an addiction. I don’t’ have the personality to go cold turkey! Must. Have. Coffee. So we left for the beach and decided we would just go and have a coffee there. Where’s the first place we found? Ramada. We are such crap


backpackers! Who goes and chills and has coffee at the Ramada while they are backpacking? In defense – the coffee was good, they gave us these great wet towels for our faces, and the view was lovely.

One we departed, we had barely taken any great length of strides along the beach before we got hot and tired, and conveniently decided to sit down and have 11:00 a.m. beers (as you do after coffee). We followed that up with a stroll to the hotel , stopped for lunch, and then just chilled around and finally started planning out the rest of our trip and repacked our bags (which are still stuffed to the brim)

We stepped out again for a cheap dinner (hello – we did have coffee at the Ramada), and decided we’d go to this cool night market thing that is outside of a mall we had passed the day before. It was not there. Instead of turning around, we just kept walking in the direction of a neighborhood where we had thought about meeting our friend Sarah from the day before. We ended up being so hungry, that when we finally found a ‘cheap’ place to eat, it was KFC, which, turned out to be not cheap, but we were so hangry it was impossible to collect ourselves to go and find somewhere else! Don’t judge us you judgy Mc Judgersons!

So, what did we learn on Day 2?

1.  Ramada coffee & KFC are both not cheap or backpacking appropriate. And Ramada is always nicer.
2. Always carry snacks with you so you are never too hungry to make bad life choices
3. Kota is really just so-so. I can see why Australians all come here – its cheap, its hot, its convenient. It’s the Cancun of Australia.

We are excited to leave here tomorrow!

Day 1: Kuta, Bali, Indonesia

The day began like any chaotic last day at a house when you’re moving by plane. 2.5 hours of sleep, one last unintentionally cold shower (how was I to know we used all of the hot water the day before!) while trying to scrub all of the soap scum off of the shower, multiple trips to the garbage in between sips of coffee, one final check of the house, and then 20 minutes late, we leave for the airport with our friend Tania.

We get to the airport, and we go to weight our glamp-packs. These aren’t just backpacks. Oh no – these are top of the line roller suitcases that convert into backpacks with a detachable daypack. We have happily ignored everything our forum and friends have told us about packing too much stuff. BUT WE MIGHT NEED THAT! I’m still convinced that we might need that. So when I say ‘mark my words,’ please refer to Day 1.

As we exhaustively walked towards the gate, we suddenly saw a friend of ours, Sarah, waiting to board the exact same flight. What a surprise? We chatted for a bit, boarded, said our adieus, and went to sleep. This is basically how we spend the rest of our day. Sleep for 1.5 hours. Freeze cause the cabin temp is way too cold. Wake up, chat, eat. Sleep for 1.5 hours now the cabin temperature is better. Wake up due to a cacophony of talkative babies; Land. Get to the hotel, which our friend Sarah has kindly volunteered her hotel’s driver to help us do. Go to sleep for 1.5 hours.

Note: It’s now 6 p.m. in Indonesia. We've seen nothing.

We finally get out of the hotel and go for a 25 minute walk to get towards Kuta, which is as Lonely Planet describes it, a ghetto of Australia. It is really nothing to write home about, so I won’t!

Back to the hotel, movie, Indonesia chips, more sleep.