One day in Kula Lumpur, Island of Gods and Gilli Air

When buying plane tickets to go to Bali, we had to stop somewhere along the way because there where no direct flights to Bali from Siem Reap. That's the main reason we stopped by Malaysia for a day. But then we received an e-mail from Air Asia saying our plane was delayed half a day, so we had a little extra time in Kuala Lumpur. Our hotel there was quite nice, with a view of the petronas towers.

Petrona towers Kuala Lumpur

When we again got back to the airport is was raining heavy outside. None of the monitors showed the flight we were supposed to be on. So after a while we got a but worried. Pacing back and forth trying to find someone to ask questions, but there were no information desk or airport employees anywhere. After a while we heard some Norwegian girls talking behind us. They were supposed to be on the same flight, but hadn't got any information either and were starting to get really annoyed. After some more waiting we asked a lady in an other gate about the screens and flights. She said they were all delayed because of the rain, and than sometimes the flights didn't show on the screens.

In the end the plane actually took of, and 3 hours later we arrived Bali, the island of gods. Since the flight had been delayed we ended up arriving in Bali late at night. And of course we hadn't booked a place to stay. Hilde was exited to be back in Bali and kept looking around for places to recognize. But she really didn't see anything familliar. Kuta was really loud with disco music and we saw (again) drunk Swedish 20-year olds wherever we turned.

The memory monument of the 2002 Bali Bombs in Kuta

The next day we decided to find a new place to stay a little out of the main party zone. We went to stay at Bali Ayu. The same hotel wich Hilde lived for 3 months in 2001. When we got there the receptionist asked: Have you been here before? I don't know if they actually remembered me (Hilde), but they made a huge fuss about it and thought it was very funny. A couple of the employees had been there since 2001 and I think I remember some of the faces. But anyways the room we ended up in was the same I'd stayed in 8 years ago (I didn't even ask for it).

Hotelbar at Bali Ayu

The next day er went to Jimbaran. A fishing village with a beautiful long beach. They were only serving fresh fish there, so there wasn't really a choice of what to eat that day.

A few days later we took a speedboat to the Gilli Islands right outside of Lombok. We stayed on the smallest of the tree islands: Gilli Air. This is a little piradiselike place with white coral sand all the way around the island, coconut groves, and happy, nice people around. Only about 700 people lives on the island. When we stayed at Gilli Air we did three dives. One of them was a deep dive. That is part of the advanced diving course and means that we can now dive down to 30 metres depths. The dives on Gilli were amazing. We saw some really big fish and sea turtles. And at one point there were actually a real shark swimming right towards us, turning away only 5 metres before it reaced us.

We stayed on Gilli Air for 9 days before we went back to Bali. Then Hilde had a pretty bad earinfection and had to see a doctor.

And after all of this we've just arrived Sydney, Australia. Hope you're all well back home :)

I really wanted to post more pictures, but the computer doesn't seem to cooperate...