Hello Again old friend!

After a wonderful whirlwind three weeks in Vietnam we were very thankful to have no plans for our three days in Bangkok. And we did nothing. Well that’s not strictly true, we swam in the miraculously cleaned up pool at our hotel, went to see Marvels Avengers Endgame (after I’d watched Infinity War, which I had refused to watch until Endgame was out), had a lovely massage and ate at some of our favourite Bangkok eateries, of which there are quite a few.

And then, a few days later, bags recovered and repacked we headed to Indonesia… after we’d paid the £100 excess baggage charge that is, doh! I DON’T EVEN KNOW HOW!!! (she says laughing hysterically) Everything heavy was in our carry on and my bag still weighed 31kg, ARGHHH!!! Thankfully a good 5-10kg of my weight is in toiletries that we will be using up before we leave Indonesia but COME ON! Ugh! Dive gear is annoyingly heavy. Anyway.

We landed at Bali and waited in the almost always horrendous immigration lines and just over an hour later were on our way to our accommodation in Sanur. So far we have stayed at different places every time we have stayed in Sanur. We liked the place we stayed in last time but they didn’t have any availability so instead we booked into Nesa Sanur. Which, as luck would have it, turned out to be a lovely little oasis, sat back from the main road down a little alley and just down the road from Hardys, the mobile phone and the DVD shop, ideally located for us.

First order of service is always purchasing sim cards which we do from the same lovely lady each time. That done we began our hunt for bicycles. It is bizarrely cheaper to buy a bicycle when planning to be on Lembongan for more than a month than rent one, because the renters are not interested in doing a deal, muppets. The place we had bought them from last time was closed both days so we did a bit of research and ended up at Rodalink and bought two very nice Polygon bikes – for cheaper than we had last time thank you very much. Having such huge bags anyway we decided to take our bags over to Lembongan on the Friday morning, enjoying the new Rocky Jetty experience, but the wait at the other end not so much, then went back to Sanur the following day to collect our bikes and buy some groceries. Everything is much more expensive on Lembongan than Bali so it makes sense to bring over as much as you can.

And then we nested. We are staying at D’Mel Sari again, this time in one of the new larger rooms with an annexed kitchen (I’ve not yet added photos to the website – long story, don’t ask). Not luxury but with lovely greenery, clean, quiet – as island rooms go and comfortable enough. Ground water, i.e. slightly salty showers are going to take some getting used to again though, that’s for sure.

Overall, overdevelopment and island shock aside, it is very good to be back, to see familiar friendly faces and meet some new, lovely ones. Annie and Ben have opened a gorgeous restaurant called Kayu Lembongan, which serves the most delicious food, their beef rendang tacos making it into JHubz’s top 3 meals of all time!

A few days after we arrived Paws of Lembongan had a fundraising evening. There is no permanent vet on Lembongan and Paws do incredible work, all paid for by donations and organised by the mighty Donna. There were a number of lots going that we were interested in and we were lucky enough to win 4 of them. All very generously donated by local businesses, we successfully bid on:

1. A months’ worth of yoga donated by Yoga Bliss. I am one of the world’s least bendy people so I am really looking forward to using this. But after my first two days diving, my hips unused to the repetitive movement refused to work. Now we have plans to go to Ubud at the beginning of June and so this has been shelved until we return, but I am super excited about it.
2. An afternoon of pampering at Tonic Body and Soul Spa, Yes indeed thank you very much. We are all booked in for Saturday and very excited we are too.
3. A night’s stay in a Village Suite at the Amandari, Ubud, erm OOOOH YEAH! it is totally gorgeous and at $700 for the cheapest rooms, out of season! Just a tad out of our usual budget, so that will be a lovely treat.
4. And lastly we adopted a Manta with Marine Mega Fauna Foundation who we have named JtotheHibbubz. Even though she is a girl. Poor manta. She sure is a beauty.

Really we would have had massages and done the yoga anyway so we weren’t spending any more money than we would have AND IT WAS ALL FOR THE PUPPIES!! And the evening was excellent fun, and wonderfully hosted by The Coconut Hut.

Jason started his divemaster training at World Diving a week ago and I was due to shadow some instructors to get myself back in the game but so far have been taking it easy. A combination of very sore post diving hips and a touch of diving uncertainty and I am trusting my instincts, studying, reading, relaxing, and diving. It does takes a little getting used to being back under the water again. The dives have certainly been divine, World Diving’s Big Boat making the journey to and from dive sites a pleasure and with manta, sea snake, turtles, ribbon eels, moray, bamboo shark among the beauties we have seen so far.

Life is good Xx