I just went through customs immigration and all that jazz at the Bali/Denpasar Airport, had a burger and beer, and now I’m waiting to get on the plane for Brisbane.

I’ve spent six of the last 11 nights in Kuta, Bali, and the other five were spent on Gili Trawangan, the largest of the Gili Islands.

We arrived in Bali around 12:30 in the morning on October 31. We found a taxi right away that offered to take us to Kuta for a pretty cheap price, but the guy seemed kinda sketchy so at the last minute we grabbed our stuff from the cab and got the hell away from him. Luckily Starbucks still had their lights on so we headed to our sanctuary. When we got to the door, one of the workers told us that they were actually closed, but we told them we had to use their Wi-Fi to find a place to stay so of course they let us sit and figure some stuff out. While we were in Starbucks, we met two guys from Germany who had just missed their flight to Singapore, so they were desperately trying to figure out a way to make all their connecting flights line up. They were doing all this on their iPhone, so I let them borrow my computer while Nick checked out where we should stay.

Most of the Starbucks employees were done work, and they were going to make a beer run, and they asked us if we wanted any!! Of course we said yes, and ten minutes later the Starbucks employee came back with a bag full of beer. From there things got even better. It was the end of the night, and food was expiring that day, so they grabbed all their extra food and brought it out for us to eat!! To make it even funnier, every single Starbucks employee was smoking inside, right in front of signs that read “We are passionate about our coffee. Please no smoking.” Funny right?

We eventually left Starbucks at around 2:30 and started walking in the direction we thought was Kuta. We were going the complete wrong direction, but it didn’t really matter because after a couple minutes we decided to take a taxi.

When we got to Kuta we tried looking for a place to stay but everywhere was booked solid. We ran into these two girls from Vancouver who took us to their hotel and luckily we found a room for the night. The place ended up being really nice, but a little bit more money then we wanted to pay, so after two nights we switched to another hotel.

Once we woke up that first day it was Halloween morning. In Singapore we met two English couples who were also coming to Bali, so we went to the beach in search of them. After only about five minutes we found Ross, Kirsty, Mandy, Julian, and three of their friends from England. We had agreed it was a great idea for us to dress up on Halloween, which turned out to be pretty damn hard when you’re traveling around.

I originally planned to be The Phantom of the Opera, but we couldn’t find any white face paint, so I ended up being Zorro, and I have to say, it didn’t turn out that bad.

On Halloween night we went to a bar called Sky Garden, and this place was legendary. We paid 6 bucks each and we got unlimited Heineken Draft from 9pm-Midnight. Mmmmmmm.

The next morning we ran into two more English guys we had met in Thailand, Chris and Ben. We told them about Sky Garden and they were in 100% so we went there and did the same thing all over again.

When we got up the next morning we were in surprisingly good shape and tried our hand at surfing. Unfortunately that didn’t last too long. We got the boards for super cheap, but one of my fins ended up breaking which was annoying, so I had to head back early, which wasn’t the biggest deal because in the hour I was surfing, I only caught about three waves. The waves were way too big for me, I didn’t pick a big enough board, and it was the first time I’ve ever surfed, so yeah, I kind of sucked.

That night we got talking with the English guys about stuff to do on Bali, and came up with the plan to leave for an island northeast of Bali called Gili Trawangan. Gili Trawangan is one of three circular islands in a straight line off the coast of Lombok that are popular amongst backpackers for their laid back and relaxing atmosphere.

We stayed there for a total of 5 nights I think, and all the other English people we met came to the island as well. At first the weather was pretty bad so we were getting kind of bored, but once the weather got better, the place was beautiful. Just like most places, we did a snorkel tour around the neighbouring islands, but unlike all the other snorkel tours, this time we saw some pretty awesome sea turtles.

The five nights on Gili Trawangan went by really fast, and we still wanted to hang out in Kuta for a bit before flying to Brisbane, so we spent our last two nights hanging out with three girls from Vancouver and the two English guys. It wasn’t until we got back to Kuta that we realized how much we missed Gili Trawangan. “Gili T” as we were calling it had no cars, no motorbikes, no one trying to sell you stuff, and no police. If there weather holds up, it’s a place where you can really just sit around for two weeks and let the time pass. For such a quiet place, the nightlife was pretty awesome. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, the party would switch from bar to bar, so all the businesses can cash in on the action, it was pretty cool.

When we went back to Kuta we did the usual and went to Sky Garden for the Freeflow of Heineken before me and Chris helped out the house band with our vocals for the better part of the night.

Our 10 or 11 days in Kuta and on Gili T went by so fast it was ridiculous, and turned out to be two of the best weeks of the trip for me.

Now I’m in the air heading for Australia….cya!!