Ubud, Bali, Indonesia - Pt.7

This is my second-to-last day of being in Bali and Sheila and I have a tour planned in Ubud.  It is further north away from major cities and heavy tourists, so it was nice to get away.  We made many stops during this full-day tour.

The first stop was at a show that was about spirits and stuff like I think.  They had costumes and everything, and didn’t talk; just made sounds and things, so it was made so everyone in the audience could understand.

That show lasted an hour or so, then we headed to where they made silver jewelry.  They made it all by hand and it was sterling silver.  Official stuff.  92.5% silver, the rest other metals.  It was amazing how intricate the guys could make those earrings by hand.  And every other piece of jewelry you could think of.

The next stop was at a painting place.  There were these guys right there and then selling them.  I wish I could have taken some pictures of all the beautiful artwork, but the guy wouldn’t let me.  I don’t know when that has stopped me before.

I really regret not buying something.  I thought it was too expensive at the time.  But after the trip I remember converting lots of Rupiah back to Won, so I could have afforded it.  Oh well.  Can’t change it.

Next we went to where the waterfall was.  There was nothing much to do there; just look at it.  So we didn’t spend too much time there. 

But there were all these Indonesian kids trying to sell us fans.  I told them I didn’t want a fan, but they kept saying, “we need money for books for school.”  They wouldn’t take no for an answer.  Finally, I jut gave them money and didn’t take a fun.  I wouldn’t have used it.

They kept following Sheila and it was hilarious.  Hahahahah.

Then we drove just a bit and had lunch next to the volcano.  I never got a picture of the volcano because the fog was rolling in so heavily, so I never took a picture.  But I did run into this lady that I also saw at the show earlier that morning.  We started talking and right away I knew she American.  We met two Americans on this trip (Chicago Guy and this lady) and it turns out this lady was from MINNESOTA!  She did some grad work at UMD and was applying for a job in Singapore, but was in Bali for holiday.  I couldn’t believe that.  She was even wearing a Duluth T-shirt.  What a small world.

After we parted from our new friend, we went to the woodcarving place.  These guys were pretty talented too.  They had a chessboard with pieces carved from wood.  It looked beautiful.

Now we’re at the second-to-last place that was the coffee place.  Apparently, they had the best cup of coffee in Bali at this place.  So, of course, I had to buy it.  It cost just inder $7 for a cup and it tasted OK.  It wasn’t filtered, so at the bottom I had to chew the coffee grounds.  It wasn’t that good.  Glad I did it though.

Finally, we are at the temples and the final stop of the tour.  We got a little ripped off though.  Although we had a tour guide (the guy that was driving us around all day) he said we had to pay to get another one.  He said that it is just respectful to give them money.  If we didn’t do that, then we couldn’t go in.  We found that odd.  So we paid him X amount of money (I don’t even remember), so we went up with him.

There were just lots of temples, and after a while they all looked the same.  But it was all part of the experience.

After that, it took an hour or two getting back to where our hostel was.  So right across from our hostel was a bar called Brewers.  It just so happened that I was wearing my Twins T-shirt, so I had to take a picture with my thumbs down (sorry Brewers fans).

We went to the bar and pretended to be from Riga, Latvia.  We just wanted to see if anyone would notice or believe us.  We were pretty convincing.  Actually, we were so convincing that the bartender gave us a free drink.  Hahahaha.  And the other time we went out, we pretended we were from Sweden.  Someone even asked us, “What is Sweden known for?”  We said: “Duh, IKEA and Volvo!”

Look at those Latvians!

One Crazy Night - Bali Pt.6

The night we got back after our Turtle Island, we were pretty tired, but we got a few beers just to drink in our room.  We were just going to take it easy.  But two guys came up to us and said they were headed out to Kuta, a very popular nightlife area for tourists.  They had already called a taxi and we could just hop in.  Sheila and I were hesitant at first, but they persuaded us to join them.  One guy was from Chicago and the other was from Poland.

The Polish guy was WAY cooler than Chicago Guy (we couldn’t remember his name, so we called him Chicago Guy) and after about an hour or so, Chicago kept asking when we were leaving.  We told him we had jut arrived there and weren’t ready to leave.  So he moped around the bar the whole night.

While he was doing that, the three of us all enjoyed ourselves.  It was the one real night we went out, and that was fun to do.

Chicago Guy was an English teacher in Japan and the guy from Poland was doing an internship teaching French in Indonesia.  What!!?  I know, I don’t get it either.  Obviously, the guy speaks three languages; I don’t think he spoke Indonesia or Balinese.

That was the only night we went out and it was a blast. 

Turtle Island - Bali Pt.5

So there are just a couple more days in Bali and we booked a full-day tour one of those days.  We went to Turtle Island on this glass bottom boat and went snorkeling and also to this lookout where we watched the sunset.  It was an awesome day. 

So the tour guides picked us up from our hostel and the transportation was all included in the price of the tour.  It was a good deal.  So it was just my friend Sheila and me on this boat with two tour guides and we headed to Turtle Island.  They had these huge sea turtles..

and snakes..

and some aggressive monkeys.

We were only there about 20 minutes and headed back in the glass bottom boat to catch our van to the next stop of the tour.  We were headed to watch the sunset on this huge cliff.  It was awesome because you could see the waves rolling in and watching the sun set with hundreds of other tourists.

Before we got to the top of the cliff where you could see the sunset, there were millions of monkeys just hanging out.  Sheila bought some bananas for a ridiculous amount of money.  And once those monekys saw those bananas they were attracted to her like a magnet.  You had to be careful with loose things too, because they would steal things.

So I had to remove my glasses so if I walked under a tree with a monkey, the monkey wouldn’t steal them.  Sheila’s sunglasses got stolen once while she was trying to take a picture of a monkey.  She was focused on the monkey in front of her and didn’t realize one was above her and that one stole them with ease.  Then some Indonesian guy came running up and gave the monkey a raw egg.

It seemed like the monkey and the Indonesian guy were working together because the monkey gave the sunglasses to the guy right as the guy handed the monkey the egg.  It was crazy.  I thought they were going to complete the deal with a handshake.  But then the guy said to Sheila, “OK, 20,000 rupiah.”  Sheila was like, “Hell no!  Here’s 5,000.”  And we walked away.

After taking a few (hundred) pictures of the sun setting, we went to the beach and had dinner that was also included in the cost of the tour.  The dinner was OK.  We didn’t get a choice, but that’s fine.  Actually, the dinner wasn’t that good because otherwise I would be able to remember what I ate.

Then we headed back to the hostel.  Our hostel was in the middle of nowhere so there wasn’t much to do.  So I rode the motorbike up the dirt (boulder) road and had some troubles.  I could get going that easily and while trying to avoid some major rocks, I gently brushed against a house.  I don’t want to say I ran into it, but really, I just brushed up against it.  Sometimes I get a severe case of the giggles and since I couldn’t get going, I was laughing all the while driving into the side of a house.  I think just the handlebar scratched the house.  I was lucky to move my feet out of the way because that could have been bad.  I was wearing sandals, but I suffered no broken toes.  Whoopsies.

Kerobokan Beach - Bali Pt.4

After leaving Sanur, we headed for Kerobokan, which is on the west side of the island.  We were going to stay at this hostel for four days/three night because we heard the beaches were good and the hostel gave a free motorbike with each room!  We were very excited.

This place was impossible to find.  Our taxi had to keep calling the hostel and try to find the right road.  It took about another half an hour before we finally made it off the beaten path.  It turned out our hostel was on this dirt road.  But it was only about 5km from the beach, and since there were motorbikes, we knew this would be a good place to stay.

After we dropped off our things in the hostel, we braved the world world of riding motorbikes.  We couldn't rent out another one because there were only enough motorbikes for each room, so we had to ride together.  Sheila was really eager to drive it, so she hopped right on.  I'll tell ya, it didn't look that easy.  First of all, we had probably the biggest one there; so it was the heaviest.  Then we're trying to start off on this dirt road (which really wasn't dirt.  Honestly, it was like driving through a volcano).  There were boulders as big as my head on this road that we;re trying to avoid and therefore, makes it impossible to learn how to drive these stupid things.

We finally got some courage and Sheila drove and I hopped on the back in search for some lunch, then the beach.  So, the seat opens and we shove our bags and crap in there.  It was a tight squeeze, but it fit.

The next challenge was driving on the wrong (left) side of the road.  This was very confusing because first; there are millions of motorbikes on this island, and second; we couldn't grasp the idea of driving on the other side.  So once we pulled out into heavy traffic, there was no stopping until we saw a restaurant or ran into the beach.

So we find this restaurant and jump off.  We were so scared and nervous, but grateful that nothing happened.  So we go to open the seat to get our stuff out (ie. our money and wallets) and the seat won't open.  We jammed so much stuff in there that the seat wouldn't lift off.  We were not very happy.  It's a good thing I carry my wallet in my pocket, so we were able to eat lunch, but after we finished, we had to go back to the hostel and ask the guy how to un-jam the seat.  It was embarrassing, but the guy did it with ease.  Then we felt stupid.

So we made another journey and found the beach.  The beach had soft, black sand.  It was really clam (as far as people go) because there were some really expensive resorts to stay in right on the beach.  That's OK tough.  It also seemed the waves were way bigger on this side of the island than on the other side from the previous day.  We were swimming and the waves carried me out pretty far.  At one point I was out so far and tired of swimming back to shore, I thought about giving up.  But I survived.  That wouldn't've been good.

  

After an afternoon on the beach, we headed to one of these resorts and ate dinner.  The food was absolutely delicious.  It was a BBQ-buffet.  You could pick raw seafood from this buffet line and they would BBQ it and bring it to your table.

I got two veggie skewers and swordfish.  IT WAS AWESOME!!!!!!!  I never tasted anything so good from the sea.  I highly recommend swordfish.

We didn't drink much at dinner, because we had to drive that stupid motorbike home.  But Sheila was pretty good at driving it.  I remember when we first started riding it; I said: "You are not only responisble for one life, you're responsible for two lives."  She laughed, but she took it seriously.

And the was the first day.

Sanur Beach - Bali Pt.3

We headed off the next morning in search for lunch and eventually set-off to our next hostel on Sanur beach on the east side of the island.  We made it to the beach and we weren't too impressed with the quality of the sand.  Honestly, we were walking on rocks.  We didn't like it so we didn't even go in the water.  We should have known what the beach would be like by looking at this picture.  It's one of my favorites.  I don't know what the barbed wire was protecting - but whatever it was,  it was between our hostel and the beach.

So we just stopped outside one of the resorts and ate a late lunch/early supper.  We actually liked being in our hostel because there was a pool table and a nice balcony to relax on.  And there was a pool on the roof (which sounds really lame because we are on this beautiful tropical island), but we actually went to the pool the following morning because we had to check out early and we still didn't like the beach.

The area of our hostel was peaceful with palm trees and great looking resorts with straw roofs and everything.  I think those cost a lot of money to stay in.  But they sure were nice to look at.  This is a view looking off from our balcony:

And this was where we ate breakfast in the morning.  Right next to where I was standing to take the picture was the pool table:

Beach day - Bali Pt. 2

The next morning we woke up and had some delicious breakfast.  Bali has the best fresh fruit juices.  All the food was good.  Lots of seafood too.  After we ate, we walked around a little and headed to the beach.

We stopped to get a massage on the way there.  It sounded so good.  I already had a massage in Kuala Lumpur, so I thought this time I would get a foot massage.  The girl massaging my feet was totally awesome.  I think she liked me.  It was awkward that we were talking and having fun while she was massaging my feet.  I guess that’s always kind of awkward.

She asked where I had been and I said something like, ‘oh, I can show you some pictures.”  So then I start looking through my pics and she tells me to take a picture of her.  So she’s smiling and all of a sudden so sticks up both of her middle fingers.

I laughed really hard and told her we had to take a picture together after the massage.  She was pretty cool.

We got some lunch and headed to the beach.  We took it pretty easy that day.  I think the beach we went to here (in Legian) was the nicest beach I had ever been to.  There weren’t too many people and the sand was soft and CLEAN.  The waves weren’t too bad and there were beginner surfers learning how to surf.  I didn’t try it.  Looked like too much work. 

There were also many Balinese people stopping by and trying to sell you things.  This one woman kept wanting to give me a pedicure.  I politely said ‘no’ and she wouldn’t take no for an answer.  So I was a little rude to her so she could understand how badly I DIDN’T want this pedicure.  Then she asked where I was from and I told her Canada.  Whoops.  Then she left and grabbed my toes.  I wanted to kick her.  Don’t touch me.

After that, we ate dinner and took it easy.  It was a very relaxing night.

Bali, Indonesia - Part 1

Sheila and I departed from the Kuala Lumpur airports (yes, two, because she flew through the cheaper airlines, so they have a different airport). Our flights only left 20 minutes apart, so I was going to leave and arrive in Bali 20 minutes before Sheila. We decided that we would meet where we had to get our visas. I don't like traveling to countries that require a tourist visa because they are a lot of work to get and often expensive. But in Indonesia (in certain airports) you can get a 'visa on arrival' and Americans qualified for that, so that was a good thing. I didn't know Sheila's flight number, but obviously I knew she would be flying in from Kuala Lumpur.

 I was hoping we were to land in the same area of the airport. I figured the airport couldn't be that big because the island itself isn't that big. So I asked one of the guys working if a flight from Kuala Lumpur was supposed to land again, and he said yes, so I knew I just had to be patient. I was waiting and finally saw Sheila come through the gates and line up for the visa. I hadn't bought mine yet, just because I had US dollars and I know that is probably the easiest way to buy one. The visas were $25 each, and I had four types of currency on me, so I knew I would be able to get it somehow. After that, we grabbed our bags and headed out to catch a cab to our hotel. 

It was a mess outside. Cab drivers screaming everywhere that they are the cheapest. In this country you can bargain a lot, and I'm not very good at it. So one guy approached us and said 200,000 rupiah, which is about $22. We got him down to 150,000. We thought that was OK. It was about a 20-30 minute drive, so it's not that bad if you think about it. But when we arrived at our hotel and checked in, we asked the front desk guy how much a cab would be to or from the airport. He said about 60,000-70,000. Yup, we got ripped off. But we learned quickly, so now we knew that if we heard a price, to cut it in half and go from there. Cheapskates.

After we unwinded for a while, we headed out to find some food. We found this cool restaurant called The Smiling Frog. It looked very tropical and relaxed. Just what I needed. Everyone also got a free shot of something when they came. It's a way for them to say welcome..

The restaurant also takes pictures of everyone and puts their picture up on their Facebook page. We though that was kind of cool.

And after that, I think we just went to bed. We planned on going to the beach the next day, so we wanted to be well-rested.

Last Day, KL Pt. 5

So I think we have one half day left in Kuala Lumpur. We just have a half a day because we will have to head to the airport and catch our flights to the airports. Yes, I said “flights” and “airports.” We are at different airports because we booked through different websites, so I was at the main international terminal and Sheila was at a different one. So once we got to the train station, we had to take different trains to our respective airports. That wasn’t such a big deal. Our flights left just 20 minutes apart. So we just agreed to meet where we had to buy our visas. But I am getting ahead of myself.

I think all we did that afternoon was go to the butterfly park. That was about the only thing I hadn’t done yet while being in the city. It was like being on a safari trying to find all these butterflies. They were floating around and hiding on flowers and plants and it was like a huge scavenger hunt.

I just remembered, we also went on a city tour in one of those buses. Really touristy, but fun. That's just a good way to see the city. Usually in bigger cities when you are forced to take the subway, you only see what's under the city and not all the buildings and everything else the city has to offer. So, we took an organized city tour. The first place we decided to get off was the royal palace. The gates weren't open and you couldn't go inside, so it was disappointing. But we did see the gates..

and the palace behind the gates...

and a friendly guard whom we asked to take his picture. So that was OK.

The next stop was a museum. there were some interesting things to see there too. I guess there weren't that many interesting things to see, because looking at my pictures now, I only have a picture of this car (from 1935, but I can't remember the make)...

the outside of the museum...

a blurry picture of the Qur'an in Arabic...

and a blurry picture of me being an astronaut...

So that wrapped up the afternoon and my vacation in Kuala Lumpur. I had such a great time in Kuala Lumpur: being alone and with my Welsh friend and with Sheila. I knew there would be more adventures in Bali!