Bye bye Bali

We had a sleepy start after our half night out but enjoyed our breakfast of mie goreng (odd thing to have for breakfast) with fruits and juice and coffee. Over breakfast we discussed going to a jazz festival at a nearby beach but after asking at reception and walking down the street to various transport companies we discovered it would be far too costly unless we hired a bike again and that didn't sound fun. Instead we chose to stay in Kuta and wander round the shops, looking for souvenirs for people as well as a guide book for Australia. Along the way we stopped for a morning ice cream (why not?) and I chose a delicious caramel flavour in a waffle cone. 

We discovered a small clothes market so looked round that until we reached the beach and decided to stop for lunch at a cheapish hawker place. I ordered barbecue chicken with rice. It was a chicken leg and the meat was delicious. It really tasted like it had been barbecued. The view of the beach in the background was pretty nice as well. 

After a stroll down the beach I decided to have a sunbathe whilst Matt went off to explore some more. It wasn't too crowded so I had a relaxing couple of hours until Matt returned and we set off to find a night market. The walk to the night market took us a good 40 minutes so by the time we got there it was 6pm and we were hungry. This wasn't the kind of night market we were used to. Reviews online had raved about it but when we got there it was pretty dead. It was very small and only seemed to be food stalls. Nevertheless, a nice man advised us to go to one lady and said her food was really good. We knew that it would take ages to find somewhere else to eat so we settled for the recommended lady. The food was actually really good. We had green veg and mie goreng and delicious chicken in garlic butter, all for a really low price. Other people rocked up after a while and we watched as the tourists dithered, deciding whether they wanted to eat here or not (most walked away). 

After tea we headed back into town and found a cool side street with a few book stalls. Having failed to find an Australian guide book this morning we finally found one but it was in French. However, the nice chavvy lady that ran the stall called up her boss and got him to bring an English version down. We attempted to haggle a little but still paid around £12 for it. Although, in England lonely planet books cost at least 20 quid. 

Having purchased our book we sat at a nice bar with live music and had a cocktail, reading some of the book and getting excited about what was to come. The cocktail went down easily and at around half 9 we headed back to the hostel to pick up our bags and catch our flight to Cairns. I fell asleep in the short taxi ride to the airport (must have been the alcohol) and we arrived with plenty of time to Skype back home before checking in. 

Checking in turned into a bit of a nightmare as we didn't realise you needed to pay for a visa for Australia. The airline managed to sort it out for us though and we went through security and got on the plane with no other problems. Let's see what Australia has to offer.