One of the problems with Ubud during New Year is that the place is so content to be a healing centre for the soul that it forgot to let go a little. The result is a disastrous lack of good night life. There were two choices for a venue as far as we could see, A bar out of town with a pool table or the Reggae Bar in the middle of Monkey Forest road. After careful examination and a half bottle of vodka in Tom and Gemmas hotel along with a game of Balderdash we settled for the Reggae Bar. We'd managed to join up with a couple from Canada, Monique and Norman making us a group of eight and a force to be reckoned with in any disco.

Nearing 2007...and nothings changed!

Amanda and I and made the mistake of having nothing to eat that day and were well on the way to oblivion by the time midnight came. The bar was packed with revellers, tourists (more than I had so far seen altogether in Indonesia, all in one place) and locals together raising a storm. The Brits abroad all sang Auld Langsign while being watched with bemused expressions, then we escaped to a more sedate bar where we could order a pizza and Amanda could once again steal the microphone for a little impromtu kareoke. She managed to teach the bar the lyrics to our Borneo song, "10 big fat leeches, sucking on my blood', Tom and Gemma managed to wake their hosts up at 6am having lost their key and their antique hand carved door was chistled apart, while Vicktor only just avoided a full scale scuffle with the locals who were after his missus. All in all what you would expect on a normal New Years Eve!

Monkey Forest bedlum

New Years day, obviously was spent in bed, with a side trip (we were feeling adventurous) to the monkey forest. Deciding not to humour the 'official monkey forest bananas' stall with a purchase we were not surprised to see big groups of long tailed maqaques hanging around tourists waiting to be fed as soon as we entered. Anyone with a bag was jumped on, terrified children were given bananas by their parents only to be mobbed by a whirl of fur and teeth. It was quite fun until they noticed the bag I had and came after me. It took a while to prove that it had nothing edible in it, a group of male monkeys after your belongings is a pretty scary sight I can assure you.

Bali less discovered. Nusa Lembogan.

With the edge taken off our week long hangovers Amanda and I spent the second of January 2007 heading back to the beach. More specifiically to Nusa Lemboggan, one of Bali's only white sand islands. Having seen how the package holiday makers live we decided to get a tour all the way there in one day, rather than taking two and doing the trip by public transport. And so, by that night we found ourselves joined up with Monique and Norman once again (they'd left the day before) at the Nusa Indah hotel overlooking a boat filled bay as the sun dropped fire into the sea on its way round the Earth.

Braving the local transport

We weren't staying around long so in a bid to see the island quickly we hired a moped and zipped off to the more secluded beaches and headlands. This was fine for a few hours, but after a particularly romantic stroll along the aptly named 'Paradise Beach' the bike gave up and refused to start. I had to push it till we found a helpful soul who lent me his bike so I could race off to get help. We still had Dream Beach to get to and wanted to make the main temple for the annual full moon celebrations. Luckily it was only a slightly twisted sprocket on the duel didgum manifold so we were able to get underway again fairly quickly and still make the festival.

Full Moon Festival

Local Hindus were dressed in their finest sarongs, all carrying offerings of fruit and incense to the temple as we arrived. Inside we could hear the singing of the priest and the banging of many ceremonial gongs and metal drums. Peeking over the wall into the enclosure was like looking into another world of colour, smell and tradition. It was so far away from the spring harvest festival as to be a differet planet entirely. There weren't even any badly singing school kids at the front, though there were a group of bored children near the back throwing flower wreaths at each other and trying to avoid their embarrassed parents stares.

Bye bye to our Nusa Posse

Tom, the pink avenger and Gemma arrived on our last day on the Island and we went out for noodles as a farewell meal. This was our goodbyes, tomorrow we would be heading off to Lombok, leaving them behind to make their way later to Australia and Monique and Norman to relax some more. We arranged our transport off the island for the morning and went to bed knowing this was to be the end of our party days in Bali.

A vegetable baot to Padang Bai, not an easy task

Transport off the island took the form of the daily vegetable boat. Each morning, rain or shine it makes the trip from Lemboggan to Padang Bai on the mainland laden with pineapples and mango's one way and the odd passenger the other. We secured the bags near the mast, found a place to sit among the empty produce baskets and set off across a beautiful blue sea to our last destination in Bali.

One more sunset

Padang Bai is basically a port town for the traffic going to to or coming from Lombok. But it was pleasant enough for us to decide to stay the night and get a little internet done. We found a two story bungalow on the waterfront and a market stall that sold doughnuts and settled in to take pictures off the camera, write some of the website and send out a few emails. Indonesian internet connections are dodgy at best and this was likely to be the last time for a while that we would be able to tell people we were still alive.

Stocked up with pastry products, tea bags and powdered milk (just the bare essentials) we said goodbye to Bali the following day, bought a one way ticket to Lombok and sailed off without looking back. From here on in we would be starting on the road a little less travelled. Bali's tourists crowds were to be a thing of the past and the view of another white face would soon become a pleasant surprise. This was 2007 and a whole new year lay ahead of us.

By the time you lot read this post we should have flown from Sulawesi to Jakarta and then, with any luck on to Manila.

Unfortunately we've so far been unable to book the Philippines plane due to serious technical difficulties (something to do with the mob of chimps Cebu Pacific Airways employ to oversee the welfare of their website). Do not panic though when you hear that we only have one spare day after landing in Jakarta to find a flight out of Indonesia before our visas run out. The penalty for illegal overstaying is rarely as harsh as a prison sentence, though it has been known. I'm hoping I'll get away with only a minor beating and minimal mandatory sexual favours.

Meanwhile here are a few more pictures of our Christmas to keep your spirits up while you wait for THAT phone call...

Oh and I promise, we'll try to get this site up to date as soon as we can reasonably be bothered.

The Pop Idol audition went badly for Amanda

Neither was she the new face of Supernova

Meanwhile Jez forms "S-Club Slevin"

Which quickly gets out of control

Thank God it's all forgotten by morning

The Lovina touts can be a bit pushy

But not as bad as the official Ubud banana mafia