indddddoooooooo!!! these last few weeks have been so epic. i've finally gotten my first taste of asia, and let me tell you, it tastes damn good. besides all of the beautiful beaches, rolling waves, badass scooter rides and serious shopping, there was some of the best food i've ever eaten in my life, and cheap to boot. i will never look at rice the same way again after having eaten nasi goreng (indonesian veg fried rice) so many times. we ate amazing seafood and fish that was literally caught 3 hours ago in the bay right in front of us. indo is also a veggies best friend with so much tempeh and tofu on the menu. i am obsessed with tempeh, it is so good, and although its not a really popular food in western culture, i definitely encourage everyone to try it.. so tasty! we also ate this stuff called water spinach, im pretty sure its a distant cousin of regular spinach that was delish as well. standard dinner was rice, veggies and tempeh or fish. i could really eat like that all day everyday. then for dessert, it was either a coconut smoothie, or a pineapple cut so that you could literally just eat it like a popsicle just holding the stem! i was in heaven. all for 5 bucks or less depending on where you went!
so typical of me to start off a story with a description of the food bahaha we left margs on march 23 and flew to denpasar, bali. we left the next day and flew to labuan bajo on the island of flores. bry did 4 or 5 days of some serious scuba diving, and i did 3 days of snorkelling. it was one of the most beautiful things i have ever seen. the corals were massive and colourful, i literally felt like i was in finding nemo, especially when a family of clown fish (Marlin, Coral and Nemo) came out of the anemone right in front of me! i saw beautiful parrot fish, trigger fish, rainbow wrasse, about 8 or 9 turtles and a black tip reef shark! i had such a blast and there were many laughs to be had, especially by the second day when they gave me a snorkel guide who couldn't swim and could barely speak english lol we pretty much stayed in LBJ not really exploring that much, as you basically just go there to dive. One of the days we went to Rinca Island in Komodo National Marine Park and got to see komodo dragons! It was super cool and I'm so happy that we made it there :)
Then we headed back to Bali to meet up with Emma and Christina and some of our other friends from Margs were there as well so we all went out for dinner and drinks and it was so fun! one of the days we were there it was Hindu new year called Nyepi. They had a ton of these really big floats shaped like different bad spirits in the streets the day before and we went to look at them.I took tons of pics on my phone but it broke so i lost them all booo! anyways the next day, they took all the floats down to the beach and burned them,which is supposed to ward off the bad spirits for the upcoming year. We didn't get to see any of that though, because another tradition of nyepi is that you aren't allowed out on the streets. we were all locked in the hotel and served one meal that day. at night, we had to turn off our lights and they brought us this one tiny little candle to use, so we all sat in bed and watched pretty woman lol it felt like a high school sleepover bahaha
then we headed to lombok on the fast boat. i was pretty hungover for that journey, so it wasn't the most enjoyable, but i knew a bed was in my immidiate future so it was ok haha then we got a drive to kuta beach where we were staying and found a little guesthouse run by this cool dude named jerry. we rented scooters and drove them all around, to the surf breaks, random beaches, drives into the countryside. i was getting pretty good at driving, but then had a mishap going down a dirt road after a massive rainstorm. mud + scooters + potholes = not good. i wasn't super confident after that but i didn't let it stop me. my friends from toronto alex and britt who are travelling asia together met up with us for a few days too! it was so cool to see them again, and we had a really great time together. I tried surfing a few times, saw a dead seasnake, manouvered my scooter around herds of buffalo on the road, saw rice paddies and made friends with a cute little guy named tom who was selling bracelets to save money for school (so i'd like to believe) we were in lombok for 10 days and i absolutely loved it! definitely reccomend everyone who goes to indo for holiday to take the boat to lombok, it is awesome. especially if you're looking for a more exploring/off the beaten track type of holiday.
emma flew out of lombok, while bry, christina and I headed back to Bali to fly out the next day. By coincidence, our friend from high school and Bry's long time next door neighbour Kail was in Bali with his friend. They changed their boat to the gilis for one more day so we could meet up. we got dinner and ended up having one more night at skygarden in kuta. this place is nuts, it's like 8 nightclubs in one building. they played really good music and we had so much fun dancing and getting caught up on the last few years. we got home at 5:30am and the guys had to get up at 6:45am for their boat to the gilis! i slept until the last possible minute and then we headed to the airport. they put christina on an earlier flight so we had to say bye to her right away which was sad. i'm so happy she came on the trip with us it was great to meet her :)
now bry and i are in darwin, living at a hostel on the main street downtown. it's weird to get used to, but i'm liking it so far. i managed to get a job at a restaurant, making the drinks and i just had some waitress training today. it's pretty intense, hopefully i don't mess up too much! i really like darwin so far, it reminds me of halifax actually so that's pretty cool :)
anyways that is my massive update on the last few weeks of life so far! everything's good, i'm stoked that i've been to asia, glad to be back in aus :)
