Arrival in Bali, Indonesia

So where are we?

We landed in Bali on Friday night and found our way to an amazing place that Linda and Jude had found, miles away from any ‘hustle & bustle’ and a welcome contrast to the heat of Perth. We have a villa each and a lovely pool, these villas cost £30 per night, which was cheaper than camping in Australia! We have flown all our camping gear on to Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan as we knew accommodation would be good value from here to China.

Everything here was built by a local high priest and used to be a place where they trained monks, so the grounds are full of the most intricate temples and offerings are still left to the gods and ancestors 3 times a day. We have so easily relaxed into the way of life here, that we could go full ‘Marlon Brando’ (Apocalypse Now) if we stayed much longer! We will be moving on soon but need to be in Bali at least until the 9th when we hope our bikes will clear customs, it’s a holiday here until then.

One funny story was our encounter with the immigration officers at Denpasar Airport, you know how these guys can be if they’re having a bad day. The queues were massive, we had to queue up to pay for our visas first and then show them at the immigration desks some 2 and a half hours later! We were full Team 2up in our T Shirts – Richard went through first with a few questions with Jude shortly after, she was quizzed as to whether she was a rider too and a bit more about our plans. Linda was after Jude and the desk next door opened up for me, so we both stepped forward. Linda’s guy had all the information he needed from Jude and was busy telling Linda about all the places we should visit while in Indonesia. He then left his desk to tell my guy all about our trip, my guy asks are we going to fish while we’re here and whips his phone out to show me all the best places to fish in Java and about a live volcano that we have to visit, they spent about 5 minutes with us - you couldn’t make this up! I could however feel a hundred pairs of eyes burning into us from the queues behind.