sorry for the delay...

internet has been a little difficult the past week or so... lots to update on!

after ubud, went to kuta for a couple days - wasnt a huge fan so moved quickly onto candi dasa, which is a wonderful small beach town. i loved it more than most because i ended up in a abso fantastic hotel called Bali Santi (still cheap cheap!) and found a phenomenal restaurant (Aquaria) which made my days and nights that much sunnier :)
afterwards i headed to tulamben, which is the sight of the liberty shipwreck, one of balis more popular dive sights. most cities do diving day trips there, but i heard when you go for the day trip the sight is unbelievably crowded. so i decided to go to the town for a night and get up early for a sunrise dive, which worked out really well since there were only a few other people in the water and the sight was really cool! i am very happy to have done a proper ship wreck now

after diving was a bit of a frantic journey to pandang bai to get a boat for the gili islands. i went to the larger island first. the highlight there was the movies on the beach they have nightly - love that! next, i went to the smaller island, though was disappointed -i had expectations of Gili being a lot like the perhentian islands, but they really didnt live up! now im back in bali after a wonderful boat ride back. i came to ubud because i missed the rice paddies and figured after i left here (less than 3 weeks now!) it would be a long, long time before i saw them again.

kuta

in kuta now, after a potentially horrendous situation yesterday - i got hit by a motorbike while i was walking on the sidewalk in Ubud. the driver stopped and took me to the clinic and then the hospital because we thought my elbow was fractured. took a couple of xrays and it turns out (thank goodness!) it is only a sprain. will have my left arm in a sling for the next week but very happy it wasnt any worse than that! made the journey to kuta today - its not really my sort of place. a nice, very long beach but the city itself is very polluted and noisy. lots of australians on a short holiday so you have the real Tourist crowd instead of just the backpacker crowd, which means prices are more expensive and life in general is more commercial. i will likely only stay here a couple days and then head maybe to padang padang before going to candidasi and diving the liberty wreck in tulmarine (sp?)

i was impressed though at the hospital and clinic in ubud! the doctor spoke english (almost perfect except for the extremely disconcerted mix up that he *and apparently all other balinese* have of saying "hand" when they mean "arm" and "sick" when they mean "hurt") and the facilities were very clean and orderly (though not nearly as modern as a western hospital) and to top it off, everyone wore fun, brightly colored clothes which gave the place a more festive atmosphere!

tonight headed to the night market in kuta, away from the city center, hoping to get out of the tourist scene for a couple of hours and get back to the street food ive been missing in bali!

ubud

ive been in the Balinese town of ubud for the past few days - i love it here! its a total hippieville, all organic restaurants (ammmazing food) and yoga centers and very bohemian feel everywhere (fab shopping in the markets too - im picking up all of my souvenirs here... including an extra bag to bring them home in!) It is very touristy, much more so then ive seen so far in indonesia, but i love it anyhow :) Today i went to a great restaurant for lunch called Sari Organics... its set about 1km off the main road so you walk for 15 minutes through all of these rice paddies - absolutely beautiful, and the place is set on its own organic farm which is where they grow all of the produce for the meals. really cool.
yesterday was also grand - went to the spa for an hours massage, body scrub and mask and flower petal bath (all for $10 - crazy!) and also took care of essentials such as extending my travel insurance and applying for my visa extension.
also went over to the monkey forest - a def highlight. within this little stretch of forest are 3 different troupes of the feistiest monkeys youve ever seen! theyve also built temples here to the monkeys and other animals of the forest, and theres legend that says the monkeys are protecting a hidden city. very fun

tomorrow im taking a vegetarian cooking class and then going to check out the remaining temples/palaces that i havent yet seen. not really in a rush to leave this place! its more expensive here than im used to in indonesia but not as expensive as kuta and the gillis are supposed to be. im happy to have found a travel company i really like here so am using them for this lovina-kuta trip (the great thing with them is that they let you stop as many places along the route to get out and spend a day or few days as you want - which also means the buses run everyday, on time - shocking!) and am def going to be booking them to head to the gillis as well (and maybe lombok, depending on how the schedule works out)