Monkeying around, climbing volcanoes and finding my zen

Despite having an incredible time on the Gili islands (I have to say I think a lot of it was purely down to the wicked people I met), I was so excited to get to Ubud which I'd heard was amazing.

The boat journey back to the mainland was fairly similar to the way out to Gili T although maybe not so much waiting around for the boat as I had before. It took about 2 hours or so and was a lot bumpier than it had been previously and instead of spending my time sleeping, I did some blogging instead!

Once we made it to shore, a Ganggari shuttle bus was waiting with men pointing us in the right direction to make sure everyone got on the right bus. The shuttle driver said they were only dropping off into the centre of Ubud so I negotiated a price for him to take me to my hostel once everyone had been unloaded with their luggage!

I'd heard good things about the No Problem hostel but it was further out than I expected it to be. I paid at reception and got my key and bumped into an American lady that had been staying at the Broken Compass on Gili T. She told me that she had already been there three nights, the 4-bed dorm had only been used by her and the first time she had actually seen other people was the night before. For me, this didn't bode well as it meant there weren't people to meet and go out and about exploring with which sucked.

I put all my stuff in the room and made my way to town to explore. It was weird, the hostel offered a shuttle into town which I'd already missed but the strangest thing was that you had to walk 20 mins to get to the pick-up point!

Ubud was so cultured in comparison to places like Seminyak and I could already tell there was more to see with numerous cafes, restaurants, shops and art galleries on the walk towards the centre. After about half an hour of walking in the heat, I was getting hot and tired and luckily came across The Yoga Barn which was renowned for being a great place to practice in Bali and I'd had friends recommend it. Although I wasn't dressed for a class and had missed the intro to yoga session, I sat in their garden and ordered myself a late lunch/early dinner of strawberry, watermelon and mint juice with a Barn Mezze plate which was out of this world! On the plate was steamed beetroot, marinated feta, roasted peppers and olives, hummus, pitta and a yoghurt raita.

I finished there at about 6pm and knew there would be nothing to do at the hostel so I carried on wandering further up into the centre of town looking at the shops and stopping for a drink at Atman which was a veggie/vegan cafe and had quirky lamps, tea, coffee and trinkets for sale and a very relaxed atmosphere.

It started to rain so I had absolutely no rush and spoke to Iz briefly on FaceTime and caught up with the the girls on the family whatsapp group and called Amanda to have a chat. By about 9pm, I was peckish again so ordered myself a small margarita pizza to keep the hunger at bay. Whilst I was in the cafe, I had messaged Tanya to see how she was getting on and told her about my hostel. She had told me she was staying at Puji and that I should just go there the following day as there were loads of people so I booked a couple of nights there.

When I left at 10ish, it was pitch black and I felt rather tired so didn't fancy the 40 minute walk back to the hostel. Luckily a local taxi driver appeared and came to my rescue and we stood negotiating for a bit before I agreed on a price to take me back. He asked what I had planned for the duration of my time in Ubud and gave me his number in case I needed a taxi. I asked him to collect me from the hostel at 10am the following morning to drop me at Puji hostel.

I got back and sorted out my stuff, ready to get up the following morning to move to Puji and had an early night.

True to his word, Wayan was downstairs by 10am ready to drive me to Puji. He helped me with my bags and we then did some further negotiations on his rate before we set off; it didn't take long!

It was definitely busier in Puji and I was pleased to see lots of people when I arrived. I didn't hang around too long as I wanted to make the most of my day so I dropped my bags off and asked how to get to the monkey forest; it was only about a 15 minute walk from the hostel which wasn't too bad.

I paid my entrance fee and wandered around, watching the monkeys eating, carrying tiny babies and picking at each other's fur which was amusing to watch. I wandered down to the waterfall area and watched the monkeys jump around from the branches and sit themselves right near the tourists.

When I got to the waterfall/rock pool area I noticed another girl who had walked up on her own and asked her if she wanted me to take a photo for her and she returned the favour for me. Her name was Amanda (very easy to remember for me!) and she was 30 and from London. We got chatting and spent the rest of the time at the monkey forest wandering around together. On our way back up from the waterfall, a monkey was sat on the rail so I took my chance and stood next to it to have a photo. It was all going perfectly until it startled me as I had turned to walk away and it grabbed my hand unexpectedly which made me jump!

We'd been offered to have the monkeys sit on our shoulders but after watching them jump onto people unexpectedly and pull them about, we politely declined; they were actually rather freaky and had started to get a bit aggressive towards each other. We didn't go too close to them but I'd got really thirsty where we were dripping in sweat from the heat so pulled my water bottle out of my bag and the biggest monkey ran at me to take it; not going to lie, I shit myself as it looked like a right demon! It rolled the bottle around for a bit and then undid the lid, drinking some of it and then pouring the rest out on the floor.

By that point, we'd seen everything there was to see so decided to leave. Amanda had mentioned she was going to walk to the Palace and around the rice paddies and I asked if she would mind me joining her for the afternoon. She didn't mind at all and said she'd be happy for the company so we made a start on the walk up the hill of Monkey Forest Road, stopping for water and chocolate milk (in my case!) at the mini mart and at some quaint little shops on the way. It was much further than we were expecting as we had been told it was only a km in distance (was definitely much longer!)

We started to get hungry so found a restaurant right near the Palace to stop for some lunch; Tropical Café. I had a lemon mint juice and a club sandwich with chips which filled me right up!

We had a wander around the Palace once we'd finished and paid for lunch and took some photos although there didn't seem to much to see (unless we had missed a large chunk of it which was of course possible!)

After that, we tried to find the rice paddies route and stopped a tourist who said she had just done it and to follow the path we were on. We couldn't get over how green it was and the scenery was stunning.

We somehow managed to get lost and ended up walking through some form of forestry where we had to climb up a steep edge to get onto a main path. After walking for another 10 minutes, we came across a little shop and stopped as Amanda had sliced her toe on a rock and it was bleeding quite a lot. The people were so friendly and offered to drive her to a doctor or pharmacy but luckily after pouring some water on it and wrapping it up in a tissue, it calmed down. They then gave her some tape so she could wrap up a clean tissue around the cut and pointed us in the right direction towards Sari Organic café to get back on the route.

It didn't take us too long to arrive and the view from the restaurant was great! It was so hot and sweaty that day so we ordered some drinks to cool down; I went for a lemon mint juice which was so refreshing and just what the doctor ordered!

It took us about half an hour to get back to the main round and we walked towards the Blanco Museum in the hope we would be there just in time as it was about 5.30pm at that point. Sadly, they'd closed when we arrived but we still got to take a few snaps of the surroundings!

Luckily after all the walking, Puji Hostel was only a short walk on the way back. When I arrived I caught up with Tanya and met a few other people that were sat in the communal area.

I went and showered, got dressed and made my way to Lily salon to see if they had any space to fit me in for a manicure and pedicure. They didn't have any availability until 8pm so I wandered down the road to a restaurant and ordered myself a ginger ale and pasta puttanesca whilst catching up with mum and Rebecca on FaceTime.

Once I'd finished and paid, I walked two minutes down the road for my appointment and was greeted by a really cutesy lady who was going to do my nails. She sat me down on a chair to get comfy and gave me a huge selection of colours to choose from. I went for a rich burgundy colour and she then drew a flowery frangipani pattern on my big toes, ring fingers and thumbs; it was so relaxing!!

After that, I wandered into town to look for a towel as I'd noticed earlier that the laundry place on Gili Air hadn't given me mine back so I'd had to use a hand towel to dry off earlier in the day. I didn't see any so stopped at Coco Bistro for a lemon and mint juice before going back to Puji.

I got on the wifi again and was chatting to Amanda about changing my flight from Bali as I wanted to extend and had been having no luck with STA. Whilst I was there, a guy sat opposite me at the table and once I'd finished the call, I got chatting to him; his name was Alec and he was from Germany. In the middle of our conversation, someone came up to the table to speak to me and I looked up to see Pat the Canadian who had been in my dorm at the Broken Compass in Gili T! After I'd briefly caught up with him, I carried on my conversation with Alec and we ended up chatting for ages about places he had been in Ubud.

He told me he was rubbish with remembering names so had to have some sort of association with someone memorable so from that moment on I became Megan Fox; I told him I'd take that haha!

The owner later joined us and was talking about the three hostels he owned amongst other conversations until the early hours of the morning when we finally retired to bed!

It took me ages to get to sleep as I was still fairly wide awake when I crawled into my top bunk. I had been messaging the family whatsapp group and had dozed off when I woke up at 2am and looked at the curtain above me to find the hugest grasshopper and had a complete meltdown about it. I whacked the curtain but it didn't do anything so I then grabbed my locker key to try and swipe it off. This just made the bloody thing jump onto my pillow and run across my bed so I then had a panic about how to get it off as it was clinging to the side of the mattress and I couldn't get it off. It probably took about 10 minutes of blowing it and whacking it with the key and it finally fell to the floor but by that point I was worried it was going to crawl back up again!!

I got up at a leisurely pace on Monday morning as I'd arranged to meet Amanda at 1.30pm at the Yoga Barn for the intro to yoga session. I wandered along the main roads and came across a nice little café; Grandpa's and ordered myself a creamy banana latte and an eggs florentine which was dreamy!

Afterwards, I chanced upon the Ubud market which was full of souvenirs although every stall pretty much sold the same thing; sarongs, vest tops and t-shirts branded with the same slogans, sunglasses and trinkets. I did however manage to find myself a blue Bintang towel. The lady wanted to charge me 300,000 for it and I told her that was ridiculously expensive so managed to whittle it down to 90,000; result!

When I got back to Puji, I caught up with Emma and a few of the other girls to see how the Mount Batur trek went and booked myself in for the trek the following morning. I then spent the rest of the time chilling before I went to yoga.

I'd not been keeping an eye on the time and also didn't fancy sweating buckets walking to the Yoga Barn so I cheekily paid 30,000 for a moped taxi to drop me off; was well worth it!

The Yoga Barn is set in stunning scenery and is so serene that the minute you walk in you instantly relax. I met Amanda and we made our way up the curved staircase to the treehouse studio ready for the class. Eki was our instructor and he was really lovely. He told us we would be focusing on Asana as beginners and talked to us about some history behind yoga, the common traits of yogis and then we worked on some signature stretches and positions. By the end of the class, I was feeling loose-limbed and completely relaxed; when we had the 5 mins at the end to lay on the mats and breathe I was close to falling asleep!

We wanted to eat there in the café once the class was over but they had their movie night on so had closed the kitchen. That didn't matter too much though as I'd eaten there before luckily! We went across the road to an Italian restaurant and carbloaded for the following day as Amanda was doing the trek too although I managed to get a cheaper deal for booking through Puji; only 250,000 for transfers, guides to take you up and flashlights, breakfast at the hostel before and breakfast at the peak.

When we'd finished, I sauntered off back to Puji and caught up with Alec who had been out exploring for the day. He was giving me tips on things to take with me on the trek so I popped to the mini mart to stock up on a couple of energy bars and almonds in case I got peckish. I caught up with Bekah as she had mentioned a few of the girls fancied doing an afternoon of exploring so were looking into hiring a taxi. I told her I was doing the trek but definitely wanted in as the general tours in taxis were what I wanted to do anyway.

I then got myself ready for bed by about 8.30/9pm and jumped into my pjs and wrote a few postcards in the hope that it would make me a bit sleepy but sadly it didn't help, I was wide awake.

I reckon if I was lucky, I got an hour or two sleep max where I was tossing and turning and thinking I would miss my alarm at 1.30am! Luckily I'd packed everything in my rucksack the night before so that I could get straight up and dressed with minimal disturbance to the other girl in the dorm.

I grabbed my bag and made my way down to reception by 2am where they were handing out banana pancakes and although I didn't fancy one at all, I knew I would need something to keep me going!

Surprisingly there were 17 of us doing it that day and only 3 or 4 girls. I got chatting to a couple of lads at the table whilst we ate who were from Birmingham and Oxford and had met at uni. We were put in a car with 3 other people and the journey took about an hour with all the old school classics blasting out of the radio; there wasn't a chance for sleep that was for sure!

At that point, I knew I was looking forward to just getting to the top and it being over and done with where I was tired and didn't want to face a 5 hour trek.

I'd had to wrap my toes up in plasters as my flip-flop had torn all the skin between my right toe where it had rubbed in the heat gradually over the past couple of days to cause a blister so hoped it wouldn't get worse.

We met our guides at the descent who handed out the torches and we then made our way over the rocky and sandy terrain; the first hour was certainly more easygoing than the second! The beauty of not being on your own was that everyone was in the same boat - I'd literally never seen so much sweat on myself or other people in my life but I had been warned that was the case!

At about 5am, we reached 'the top' this however wasn't the very peak so we had a quick drink break and I shoved a soy bar down my neck before we took a brisk walk up to the very peak in time for the sunrise. This part was tough as it had such a steep incline uphill and the ground was sand and small stones so we were all skating and slipping around where the trainers just couldn't grip. Luckily, the female guide was close by and she steadied me a few times and pulled me up when I lost my footing.

By the time we reached the peak, I was uncontrollably sweaty, exhausted and my feet hurt but the relief was immense; I couldn't believe I'd just climbed an active volcano and the view was spectacular and absolutely breathtaking.

I took a seat on a piece of fabric the guides had laid out and sat to watch the spectacle of nature unfold in front of me. Next to me was sat a guy from my hostel and I offered to take some photos of him in front of the sunrise and he returned the favour.

We then got chatting and acquainted; his name was Lucas and he was from a village near Southend-on-Sea. We had about half an hour or so sat there and it was pretty cold so we all had jackets on. Luckily Lucas and I got our photos when we did as the clouds came across and blocked our view of the sun for a long period of time. The guides came around with banana sandwiches and boiled eggs but I wasn't really hungry where I'd just had another cereal bar but I took an egg. After a bite of it, I didn't want it so rather than chucking it to the stray dogs roaming around, I handed it to Lucas who was still hungry!

Once everyone had finished, we didn't hang around too long and started our descent. The bit from the peak to the top where most people stay was the trickiest as you literally just slid down on the sand and stones than walking and I ended up on my bum at least once or twice. Lucas stayed nearby and made sure I was ok though and we both laughed about it!

I thought the descent would generally be much harder because of how steep it was overall for the trek but it went much quicker and was fine so long as you found rocks to stand on that didn't move as lots of people slipped or stood on rocks that then moved and sent rocks flying downhill!

When we were about half an hour away from the finish, I was absolutely bursting for a wee and it was less easy to distract yourself as we had gone a different route so there was less worry about navigating your way over the rocks. I couldn't have been more grateful when we finally got back to the base.

One car of people decided to go back to the hostel but the price had included a visit to the coffee plantation and rice paddies. I jumped into a car with Sarah from Canada and two siblings from the US; Dusty and Brett. The driver had huge speakers and was cranking the tunes so there was no chance of sleep really but I shut my eyes and rested for a bit after chatting with everyone.

The coffee plantation was lovely and set in a fairly isolated location which was so green! We saw the different coffee beans and then watched them being heated in a pan and mashed up in a giant pestle and mortar. After that, we were lead to a table where they laid out the 12 different teas and coffees to try in small cups. I loved the chocolate coffee, vanilla coffee, ginger tea, mangosteen tea and the lemongrass one too. They were all rather nice with a few exceptions like the rice tea!

After we browsed the gift shop and I made sure I was careful my rucksack didn't knock anything off the shelves when I moved around, we went back to the car to make the 40 minute drive to the rice paddies. Although I had walked around the rice paddies close to the hostel with Amanda, these ones were pretty spectacular as they were graduated and looked like big green steps amongst the palm trees; it was gorgeous! A little girl was selling some postcards wandering around so I bought a set from her, took some photos of the view and walked back to the car.

The journey back didn't take too long and we stopped in the village so Dusty and Sarah could buy some dream catchers in a shop we had driven past - they were gorgeous and if I'd had space I would probably have bought a couple myself!

When we got back to Puji, I caught up with Emma and the taxi still hadn't been sorted as a decision hadn't been made on the places we were going. I ordered some noodles with an egg as I was ravenous and sat with Emma and Izzy who I was introduced to and Bekah then told us that a couple of lads from the hostel were paying for a taxi and going roughly to the places we wanted to go to so the 6 of us could get in and split the 400,000 to take us to the Batur hot springs, holy water temple, rocky temple and the tegenungen waterfall.

It was a quick dash to get changed out of the clothes I was wearing, grab my bikini and sarong for the temples and some water to carry around and then we all bundled into the taxi and met Sam and George. They were from Chester and I mentioned I'd been as one of my uni girls is from Saughall and they said it was really nice there!

The afternoon was a complete whirlwind going one place to the next and I couldn't believe the first stop was right next to Mount Batur; I could have been that morning! Cheekily though, instead of charging for one car to drive through the village, they charged us each 31,000 and we had a long debate with them as we knew we were being ripped off but there wasn't a lot that could be done as the owner's brother who was driving us (Eddie) didn't have English as good as his brother and when we asked him to phone and check it was right so the owner could speak to the security guy, it didn't happen!

The hot springs was 150,000 to get in and they gave you a towel, locker, fried banana and watermelon juice as a snack which wasn't too bad! The first hot spring we got into overlooking the volcano wasn't that warm so we jumped out and into a shallow one. From that point, we just jumped into all the different pools and there was even one with a water slide which was great fun and we had a few turns on that! We ended up spending an hour or so there and were concerned about timings for the rest of the day as it was already gone 3pm by that point and we still had the other places to see with the driving in between.

The next stop was the rocky temple where we had to walk down loads of steps to get there but it was so different to other temples I'd seen; the rocky part reminded me of some of the smaller temples at Ankor Wat. There was a little waterfall and stream where kids were swimming and there was an angry looking dog pacing around too! We took all the photos we wanted whilst wandering and then made our way back to the top to go to the next place.

Luckily from a timings perspective, the holy water temple was really close but Eddie said we only had 5 minutes which wasn't ideal. We paid to go in and then I put my sarong trousers on, only to be told you couldn't wear trousers so I had to get one of their sarongs and give them a donation so I was even more rushed to look around! It was smaller than I'd envisioned but it was still really peaceful and there were people in the water but we didn't have time for that! Wandering around, I couldn't see any of the others so panicked that I'd overstayed my time wandering but I found Emma taking photos for a couple so we also took some for each other before navigating our way through a market to get to the car; was so confusing!

I was fairly shattered by this point but was looking forward to our final stop at the Tegenungan waterfall as I'd heard good things about it. The sunlight was coming to a close though and it was getting later in the day. At about 5.30pm when we were 10 mins away, we all got into a debate about whether to bother going as it would be dark and might be shut. I listened to everyone else but in the end I said to everyone we'd driven all the way there so it would be pretty pointless driving to the hostel so we might as well see if we could get in. Thankfully everyone was in agreement and I knew the lads wanted to see it as much as me which helped!

We got there in the nick of time with 10 minutes to spare until they closed and the sun hadn't gone down yet either; result! Izzy and Bekah didn't fancy it but Emma, Sam George and I all pretty much raced down there and the lads and I threw our swim stuff on and jumped in! The photos weren't great as it was too dark at that point but I was so glad we made it!

The day was one of my best yet and despite feeling like a zombie with tiredness, I'd had so much fun! The journey back didn't take too long and I walked into the dorm and was relieved to get into the taxi although three people were already in bed for what I presumed was an early night before a Mount Batur trek and I disturbed them going in and out of the room with the creaky large door to hang my wet stuff out on the line; one girl even threw back her curtain to peek round and see what it was; she didn't look happy!

My foot was fairly sore in between my big and second toe where the blister was an open wound and I sprayed it with lots of antiseptic spray Sandra had given me in Penang as it was looking quite red and my foot had started to swell.

Once I was ready, I paid the owner for the additional night I was staying for and made my way to Umah Pizza for some dinner. I ordered a sprite and the tuna spaghetti and sat at a table watching the world go by as their wifi didn't work. The dim lighting didn't help though and I could have easily dozed off being sat there! As I was paying my bill, Bekah, Emma, Izzy, Sam and George walked past; I hadn't even noticed that they were at a table at the back of the restaurant!

When I got back to the hostel, I told Emma I'd accidentally picked up her missing bikini and sat with her and the others chatting. I was also on the phone with Amanda as I'd been desperately trying to sort out changing my flight but STA had been shockingly shite at sorting it so she had been on the case bless her. Lucas then came back and we caught up on the day and chilled out. A little while after that, Alec also returned from his day out so he came and sat with us too and I introduced him to Lucas. I got a second wind and was wide awake again where I'd been chatting.

In the end, it was just Alec and myself with Bekah and one of the South-East London girls who had some seriously eye-raising conversation and Alec and I just looked at each other when she was asking Bekah if she thought she could make it as a stripper in Australia so she wasn't skint and then announced all the different drugs she'd done on Gili T and that people who didn't do them needed to get a life, live a little, stop being boring and do drugs. I was laughing to myself as I'd never heard something so ridiculous. I just looked at Alec knowingly and said nothing; I knew if I opened my mouth to let rip it could ignite a fire and it wasn't worth it; I wasn't going to see her again and everyone is entitled to do whatever they see fit when they go travelling!

At 1am, we were all pretty tired so I ventured up to bed knowing that in half an hour her girls would be up getting ready for their trek so I'd probably be woken anyway. Worse thing was, the girl who had looked angry earlier in the day had set her alarm but snoozed it twice in the dorm which was far less than ideal when you've got lots of people sharing a room!

I overslept and missed breakfast with Emma and the girls so got ready at my own pace as I wanted a chilled day; over 24 hours on the go had certainly caught up with me and I was wiped out. I got showered and dressed and wandered into the town to find breakfast somewhere, taking my journal with me so I could catch up, waving goodbye to Alec who drove past on his scooter as he was leaving. I ended up at Lotus café overlooking the lovely Lotus garden in front of a temple and had an apple and cinnamon pancake with an iced coffee.

I'd had confirmation from STA that my payment had been accepted and the change to my Bali flight was processed so I could stay an extra week; now it was just to wait and hear that they had changed the Singapore to Fiji and Fiji to New Zealand flights! I messaged Emma to let her know it had been a success and asked if she fancied some company exploring the north which she did :)

I checked with the owner to see if there was availability to stay another night in my room as there was now no rush to get to Canggu before leaving and he said I could stay there or even at his other hostel Wanderlust down the road when I asked if there would be space for Emma and I there.

I had nothing planned for the rest of the day and it was really overcast so I spoke to the owner about going to the cookery class so he booked Bekah and I in for the 3pm slot. I spent the rest of the time chilling in the room and resting as it was absolutely bucketing it down to the point the balconies were starting to flood so there wasn't much you could do downstairs as a lot of the communal space was fairly open.

The driver came to collect us and take us to the restaurant/cookery school and we picked some people up on the way. It was great fun and I'm so pleased I'd signed up for it, especially as the bad weather would only have meant being sat in the room all day. Initially, we got to make the little baskets and flower arrangements that every house and shop displays with incense as their religious offering.

We chopped up ingredients to make a basic sauce, watched it get ground up with a pestle and mortar and made various dishes including a tofu curry, chicken mushroom soup, salads and skewers and pancakes for dessert. The smells were incredible and we all took it in turns cooking with the pans and watching and my stomach rumbled so much!

Once we had finished, the feast was laid out on the buffet table and we all tucked in; it was so good!! When dessert had been served, we all said goodbye and our driver dropped us back at the hostel.

I spoke to the owner and paid for the additional night in the hostel as Emma had paid for hers. I then chilled for a bit in the lounge area chatting to Lucas and the girls. Emma and I agreed that in the morning we would head to Munduk waterfall and lake and then stay in Lovina, potentially with another friend of hers, before making our way to Amed as the snorkelling is renowned for being great there.

I went up to bed for an earlier night than normal and sprayed my toe again as it was still red and was starting to swell so I was getting concerned that it was infected. I then wrote the rest of my postcards and journal and sorted my bag out ready to leave the following morning.

Quote to leave you on for the day: "It's the friends you meet on your path that make the journey worthwhile."

Ciao for now! Xxx