Paul & Luiza´s World Tour

We get to the port and take a taxi to KUTA Beach, Lombok. It’s hard to find a decent hotel as the accommodation available is pretty basic. After trying really hard we take a room with a fan. Yes, that’s all, a bed and a fan, cold shower, very basic indeed, even for one night but we are tired and the place is clean. We dump our bags and go for a walk along the beach and it’s absolutely rubbish, really. There’s rubbish everywhere, literally, and abandoned sad looking dogs, depressing, the vendors are quite aggressive and pushy and we are tough. We survived India, China and the Middle East and we are not easily put off.

And on top of everything, the beach is not very nice at all. Bloody Trip Advisor, get me out of here!!!! Lombok is never going to be the way Bali was. We’re really looking forward to spending a few days/weeks in a nice place and we know straight away it’s not going to be here. So, we wake up, have an extremely basic breakfast and move our tired old bodies to the lovely, magical and familiar island of Bali. We take “the shuttle”, a van, a ferry (missing terribly the “Legend of the Seas” already?), then another van and we are in KUTA, Bali. Man, does it feel like home? YEAH, even after seven years, Bali is still Bali and we are happy again! It’s our 5^th time here and there’s so much more to this place than its closeness to Australia. Why did we take so long to come back here? We always ask the same question when we arrive in Bali. The people are still the most gentle and their care with the temples, the offerings, the smell of incense and the gardens still make this place one of the most magical places in the world. They practice a different form of Hinduism here and their culture and religion are exuberantly displayed and shared with their guests everywhere.

We find a nice hotel near Kuta, “Dewa Bharata Bungalows”, with a lovely Balinese garden and a nice swimming pool and we are set to go, or in this case, stay. We go back to the “Gateway for India”, our favourite restaurant in town, and keep on eating our way around the island. We also hit the shops with much joy and dedication.  We’ve done a lot of the sightseeing here before, so this time it might be just enjoying “the vibe”. We apologize in advance for the lack of sightseeing excitement, will try hard to get some interesting pics for you guys anyway. We get 4 days of rain and use them to plan our trip to Australia, we are really looking forward to seeing our family and friends over there after 7 years. We also want to see the rest of the country, so there’s a lot of planning to do as it’s a huge country. Ok, the rain is gone, the shopping is done, it’s time to play lizard by the pool.

There are a lot of Brazilians coming to this island, considering how far it is. Most of them are surfers and have been coming to Bali for the last 30 years. There is even a Brazilian restaurant here serving “feijoada” and “commercial” (PF). And the funny thing is, the Balinese people have been learning their Portuguese language from the surf guys. Once people know we are Brazilian, we are always greeted with huge smiles and cries of “bom para caraio” (fucking good) or “gostosa” (your wife is hot) amongst other very funny and seriously inappropriate expressions. We laugh, a lot.