Lickable Wallpaper

We’re in Bali at the moment (in Kuta, the main tourist area by the sea) and although we didn’t get a good first impression, we’ve quickly settled down to the routine of eating, sleeping, a bit of surfing and a lot of sweating :-) We’ve come to the conclusion that what you first think of any place is mostly down to expectations – we didn’t expect too much of Kuta as we heard it was supposed to be like the Canaries for Ozzies, but it’s not nearly as hectic as we thought it would be. It’s great to be relaxing for a few days and not having to catch buses and trains! We’re staying in a really relaxed place called the Secret Garden Inn, just off Poppies Gang I (this is where a lot of the cheaper accomodation is in Kuta). A really clean, large room with air-con and a fridge is costing 240,000 rupiahs per night which is about €17. That includes breakfast and a nice swimming pool. We thought that Kuta would be full of backpacker types, but there are lots of families with kids around (most people here are either Australian or Japanese). Bali is a big surfing destination, but most of the breaks are for advanced surfers – Kuta is one of the few places that’s suitable for folk like us, but even at that, it’s great compared to a lot of Irish beaches! We both had a good session today and we were easy to spot from the beach being the whitest people in the water! We’ll probably be moving inland to Ubud in the next few days, but don’t have any definite plans yet.