It’s hard to know where to start with Bali. Bali is a
place where a lot of Australians go to surf, party and sit on the beach. It’s a
tiny island but there is so much to do and see. However, it takes forever to
get anywhere because the roads are more like little streets. Everywhere is so
colourful and the people are extremely friendly. When locals talked to us and
found out we were Americans they were so happy. They love Americans, especially
Barak Obama who had recently visited Bali. There is trash everywhere; however,
there are also lots of beautiful temples with colourful offerings everywhere. Also,
EVERYONE rides mopeds – you can even find whole families riding on a single
moped!
Getting There
Jessie and I left nice and early for the airport where we
met up with Kim and Kelsey. After checking in for our flight we went to change
money. We exchanged AU$150 and got 1,050,000 Rupiah!!! We became instant millionaires! We were
already excited but it made us instantly giddy! That changed slightly when we
got on the plane. We had two flights; the first to Jakarta and then to
Denpasar. We thought that the flight to Jakarta would be about 2 hours. Boy,
were we wrong! We were sitting on the plane and the made the announcement over
the loudspeaker with all the flight details; our estimated time of travel was 6
hours! And that was only to Jakarta! At least they had lots of movies, food and
drinks. I tried guava juice – it’s delicious!
When we got off the plane in Jakarta we were hit by a
wave of heat and humidity. We were a little hungry so we went to look for some
food. It was so confusing! The money comes in denominations of 1,000, but they
only show prices in denominations of hundreds. It didn’t get any easier after
the first day. It was a quick 2 hour flight from Jakarta to Denpasar and then
we were in Bali!
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Visa: check
Ticket: check
Passport: check
MILLIONS: CHECK!!!! |
It took the whole day to get there, so by the time we
landed in Denpasar it was already dark. We grabbed our bags and jumped into a
taxi – a 20 minute ride for $5…split between 4 people, not bad! We got to our
fancy hotel, 100 Sunset Boutique, in Kuta where Emilia was waiting for us. By
then we were exhausted and fell asleep as soon as our heads hit our pillows.
Day 1, Kuta
We woke up to rain. At the time we didn’t realize how
much we’d appreciate the cool moisture. We went down for a delicious buffet
breakfast with everything we would ever want to eat; eggs, pancakes (with
chocolate syrup), fruit, croissants and vegetables. The best part…we could eat
as much as we wanted! Since it was raining and we were kind of tired from all
the traveling, we took our time eating (that was we had time to digest and eat
more!).
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| Offerings |
It was raining but it was so hot! We took a shuttle from
our hotel into the heart of Kuta. Good thing Emilia had had a chance to wander
around the day and she acted as our guide, directing us through the main street
and little side streets. The rain ended up being so refreshing and although we
were a little overwhelmed at first, we soon felt confident walking around. We
spent the morning walking around and getting our bearings, and we didn’t
realise how hungry we’d gotten! We had a delicious lunch for only $3-$4! We
felt on top of the world!
After lunch, we were stuffed, and tired from walking
around for hours in the rain. So we went on a mission to find a spa. There are
spas all over the place; the trouble was finding a place that could accommodate
all five of us at the same time. Finally, we found a place that had the fish
foot spa. We went in and looked at what they had for massage packages. While we
were waiting for them to finish up with their customers at the time, we all sat
on a bench and let fish eat our feet. It was the weirdest feeling! These little
fish just come and start picking at your feet! All it really feels like is a
tingling. That is until the big guys come along – then it feels like a
jackhammer drilling at your feet! After that, it was off to the massages. We
had two hours with a full body massage, a fully body cleansing and a facial! It
was so nice! We felt like princesses! At least for a while, then we got a
little bored. I would definitely be happy getting a massage every day! (Maybe
just an hour long massage though!)
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| Fish Spa |
To end the day with some more pampering, we went
shopping. This is where we put our bargaining skills to work. Everything was
already cheap and it was hard to bargain for even lower prices. We soon got the
hang of it and were getting great prices for all our touristy souvenirs! Of
course we all got Bintang singlets so we could look like all the other tourists
and all the other Aussie kids that head over to Bali.
But that wasn’t our only adventure of the day. While we
were walking around shopping, getting pampered, eating and just walking around,
we were also looking for a place where they did dreads; Jessie wanted to get dreadlocks.
We had been walking around and stopping in to ask people for a while and we
were starting to get tired. Half the people didn’t know what dreadlocks were
and the other half understood it was Bob Marley hair. Finally, we stopped in a
tattoo parlour where there was a small statue of a guy with dreads out front.
Bali Family Tattoo was a little store with black and
white tiled walls. We asked the guy if he did dreads, and he said that he
didn’t but one of his co-workers did. However, we’d have to go to their other
studio. We said that was no problem and asked for directions. The guy said that
it was too far to walk this late in the afternoon and that he’d get some
friends to come bring us over.
*Note: Mom, I am only telling you this because it all
turned out fine*
All of a sudden, three guys showed up on mopeds to bring
us to the other studio. These ‘friends’ seemed nice but the number 1 rule is
DON’T TAKE RIDES FROM STRANGERS. It’s funny how we listen to all these rules
when we’re younger. However, when you’re older and three guys on mopeds show up
in a foreign country to bring you to a tattoo parlour, you say “why not?!”. So
yeah, sorry Mom! I’m not going to lie, there were a couple of moments where it
was a little sketchy. The roads in Bali are barely roads – they’re more like
tiny windy side streets and they’re often pretty empty. At one point I turned
around and Emilia motioned that Jessie wasn’t behind us anymore. That made me a
little nervous, especially when we got there and Jessie wasn’t there. But she
turned up a couple of seconds later and it was all good.
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| Dreaded Jessie and Lenny |
It was about 5pm when we entered the studio and met
Lenny. He had dreads himself and was talking the whole time. While we were
there, there was a kid getting a 5-hour long tattoo. His friends had all
ditched him and the poor guy looked like he was about to cry. He kept us amused
for a good couple of hours but we didn’t realize how long we’d be there for. We
ended being there for 9 hours!!! None of us realised how long a process it was
going to be. At 4am we finally headed home for some long needed sleep.
For more information on the process of getting dreads, go
to Jessie’s blog.
Needless to say, it was an extremely long, eventful first
day in Bali!
Day 2, Kuta and Ubud
After such a long and exhausting day for our first day,
we had a more relaxed second day. We had to check out of our hotel at 10am, but
we were getting picked up to go to an elephant safari. Since we didn’t have a
lot of time and it was a nice sunny, warm day we decided to take advantage of
the nice pool and restaurant at the hotel. We were the first to get picked up which
was nice because we were able to see more places than where we had wandered the
day before.
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| 100 Sunset Boutique Pool |
We drove through the Seminyak markets which were so
colourful. We made a mental note of coming back to these markets. From there we
picked up a bunch of other people and headed to the Elephant Safari Park in
Ubud. Even though Ubud isn’t very far away from Kuta distance-wise, however, it
took a couple of hours to get there as all the streets were small little
streets where you couldn't go very fast.
We got to the Safari Park in the early evening in time to
feed some of the elephants. They’re huge and they were hungry. You have to be
careful with though, as we soon learnt, because they do realise how big they
are compared to us. Jessie was feeding an elephant and she moved her hand (with
the food) away from the elephant and in the elephant’s attempt to get the food,
it knocked Jessie over! Turns out it was a pregnant hormonal elephant which
didn’t really help matters.
From there we got to feed a little baby elephant and then
watch a show, staring the elephants. The presenter was Balinese, however, when
he first talked we were all a little surprised – he had an Australian accent.
We were all a little surprised, but it was kind of funny that an Australian
accent felt familiar. The elephants did lots of tricks, including playing
soccer and basketball, adding and some other cute elephant tricks. Then it was
time for our ride.
We stepping onto the little platform and put our
‘seatbelt’ on. The ride was advertised as an elephant ride under the
stars…being able to see some stars might have been useful. It was still fun and
at one point, Emilia’s elephant came up beside Jessie’s and my elephant and
then quickly overtook us! We passed the lodges where people can stay overnight
(the elephants come and pick you up for breakfast) and through a small forest.
There were lots of beautiful white trunk flowers that we allowed to pick. There
were lots of statues along the way – all of elephants!
To end the evening, we had a buffet dinner. Again, we
were happy as it was an all you can eat. Then it was on to our hotel. This one
was in Ubud, called the Taman Harum. It was amazing. We had two rooms, both
with two floors and the bathroom was outside! It wasn’t in a separate outside
building but rather, there was no back wall of the bathroom – it was just open.
The next day was going to be a full day so we went to sleep in our giant beds
to get ready for what lay ahead.
Day 3, Ubud
This was probably my favourite day in Bali. We got up
nice and early and met our guide, Ry. We headed to the rice paddies making a
quick stop at these huge white sculptures. We passed temple after temple, moped
after moped and rice paddies after rice paddies. We pulled over at the side of
the road and hopped out the car. Through a tiny little entrance we started our
tour.
We learnt about all the different stages in the life of
rice as we walked through vast green landscapes. There was only a small little
pathway for us to walk on so we walked single file with Ry pointing out fruit
and insects along the way. At one point he stopped, pointed to a bright green
snake which he told us was poisonous. Next thing we know he’s grabbed the snake
and it twirling it around in front of us before he flings it into the flooded
rice paddy below us!
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| That green thing is a SNAKE! |
It was a perfect sunny day and although we probably
looked gross and sweaty, we loved walking around, seeing the rice paddies which
are so famous in this part of Bali. We passed by lots of rice farmers, cow
sheds, and we were even invited into a farmer’s house! It was a tiny space with
cows eating on one side, a small walkway and a plank where the sleep. With all
of us in there, there was barely space to move but the couple seemed so happy
and welcomed us happily.
After walking through some more parts of the paddies,
which looked like they went on forever, we finished up the walking tour. As we
sat waiting for the car to come pick us up, two local men were hanging out where
we were stopped. One of the men climbed up a palm tree and cut down some
coconuts. The second guy then proceeded to cut open a small section of the
coconuts with a small axe. We then drank fresh coconut milk from the coconut –
it was so surreal!
Our first stop was to a beach with black sand. The sand
was so glittery and there were ladies collecting rocks and shells from the
shore. On the way there we passed a procession; there were hundreds of people
standing in trucks playing music. We learnt that this was a cremation
celebration and that the Balinese have celebrations for everything. From there
we drove to a traditional Balinese family housing community.
There are many different ‘houses’ within the housing
complex for a traditional family. Each ‘house’ has as different purpose. There is
the house where all the cooking happens, where the children sleep after a
certain age, where the animals’ food is prepared and then the general living
and sleeping areas. There is also a small temple within the complex.
Our last stop of the tour was to a huge temple. We had to
put on some nice shiny blue skirts to cover our legs before we headed into the
temple. There were many different parts of the temple; a musical platform, lots
of shrines with statues and an area where women were preparing offerings. They invited
us to watch and take a picture with them. One of the ladies put a flower in
each of our hair. And that wrapped up our tour. We returned to the hotel for a
quick lay at the pool and then it was off to the markets.
We stopped for a quick lunch in the heart of Ubud and
then it was off to the monkey jungle. There were monkeys everywhere! At first
we were really timid of the monkeys. We bought some bananas to feed them and it
was amazing how they peeled the bananas! They are so similar to humans in the
way they act and eat – it was amazing! There were lots of temples and statues
around the jungle that we walked around looking at and taking pictures, and all
the while monkeys were running around.
We had so much fun feeding the monkeys, then when we were
heading out, I crouched down to take pictures of some baby monkeys because they
were so cute and then all of a sudden there were three monkeys climbing all
over me!!! One was trying to eat my backpack, and then one was just sitting on
the top of my back. They were the little monkeys and they were so cute. Maybe
if they had been the bigger adult monkeys I would have thought it was so fun!
We finished the day with some shopping in the market which
was full of people, stalls and many different colours. It was extremely hectic and
almost overwhelming as people kept asking you to buy their products. It was
also raining so it was hard to walk through the tiny walkways without getting
wet. It was a very full day and what better way to end it, than with shopping
and food?!
Day 4, Ubud and Nusa Dua
Ubud is known for its cooking. So Emilia, Kelsey and I
signed up for a cooking lesson at the hotel. Jessie and Kim went into the
centre to do yoga. The first part of the cooking lesson was seeing where the
food we were going to be preparing came from. We went back to the market but to a whole new
section where it was all food.
We met the chef and she brought out all the ingredients,
neatly prepared. I wish every time I cooked, all the ingredients could come readily
prepared like that! We made three dishes; chicken curry, chicken satay and a
tuna dish. It’s amazing how many spices go into our pre-mixed spices. We didn’t
use an ounce of curry powder in our curry, yet it tasted exactly like your
typical curry. We ground all the spices together on a huge stone grinder and
put them in a huge pot to simmer. We also wove banana leaf baskets which we
made rice in. We ended up needing a lot of help with those baskets – they were
not easy to make! When we made the chicken satay, we used ground chicken and molded it over the end of scallions. The best part of the cooking lesson was
that we got to eat it all!
After lunch we packed up our bags and headed for Nusa
Dua. Bali was supposed to be a beach vacation with some shopping and
sight-seeing in between. It took us until our fourth day to have a beach day. But
it was perfect. Where our hotel was in Nusa Dua, was not where the main hotels
and tourists stay. So we took a shuttle into the centre where there was
entrance to the beach. Finally, we got some sun baking in! There weren’t very
many people around and it was so nice to just lie down, nap and read. They had
a “hello asean” convention on so we went to check it out. We got so many food
samples!!! Jessie, Emilia and I went and they loved us – they kept giving us
samples and asking to get their picture taken with us!! We ate so much pia –
the chocolate ones are delicious!
We finished the evening with a nice dinner in the centre
and then some swimming in the infinity pool at the hotel with a beautiful view
of Nusa Dua.
Day 5, Kuta
This was Emilia’s last day, we didn’t really do anything,
especially as we had separated and had some troubles with the hotel. We had
booked a hotel online and then when we went to check it they didn’t have our
reservation. Turns out we never got a confirmation e-mail for our reservation and
the prices had gone up a lot. We decided to switch hotels but we had to wait
until we were all together. We got a lot of reading it this day.
Since it was Emilia’s night we took a stroll in Seminyak
where we caught the sunset and found a nice restaurant right on the beach. We stayed
and sat on these huge pillows, and of course, we HAD to stay for dessert.
Day 6, Seminyak
We were on a mission. Remember those markets we passed
when we were on the way to the elephant safari – we were in the same area and
were leaving the next day, so we wanted to finish off our shopping in those
markets. However, it turned out to be a much bigger mission than we thought. It
was really hot and humid and we just couldn’t find these markets! We were
getting tired and needed to rehydrate. Kim and Kelsey wanted to get their nails
done before they left so we changed our mission to find a nail salon. Jessie
and I left them to get their nails done so we could go back to the hotel,
hydrate and maybe go to the beach.
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| La Lucciola |
We had no idea how far away we were from the hotel but we
couldn’t figure out how to get to the beach from where we were. We decided to
keep walking because we had to get to the beach soon and we had walked a long
way from the hotel. We were hot and tired but finally we found the beach. We stepped
onto the beach and found ourselves in front of a big open restaurant. I looked
at it in disbelief – it was the restaurant that Uncle Geoffrey had told us to
go to for drinks at sunset, La Lucciola. It wasn’t sunset but we were hot and sticky and in
desperate need of a drink. Although it wasn’t sunset, we had a great view of
the beach and relaxed with delicious cocktails.
We had a nice dinner all together before Kim and Kelsey
left for the airport.
Day 7, Seminyak
Jessie and I were the only ones left and our flight was
leaving later that afternoon. There was only one thing left for us to do; surf.
We went in search for someone who would rent a surfboard to us for the leftover
money we had; about $5. We were running out of luck when we finally convinced
someone to rent one for the both of us to share for an hour. We had such a
great time, I got up and the best part about it was that I can now say that I
surfed in Bali!!
We did a couple of last minute shopping, hung out at the
pool by our hotel, had dinner and then it was time for us to head home. There are
lots of exit fees that you have to pay when leaving Bali, we knew this and paid
the fee in Bali. However, when we got to Jakarta where we had a layover, we
found out that we had to pay another exit fee. We’d only accounted for one exit
fee and there were no working ATMs at the Jakarta airport. Needless to say we
were getting a little worried. Finally, someone found a working ATM for us
outside the airport. For a while though we thought we might be stuck in
Jakarta!
But we weren’t really in Cairns to just
walk around and sit at a pool. We were there to go to the Great Barrier Reef. We
woke up nice and early and walked down to the terminal where we met our boat to
bring us to the Reef. As we walked onto the boat we were given a mask and a
pair of flippers. We were given a quick briefing about how the day would go and
then we got to lie up on the top deck soaking up the sun and looking at the
beautiful blue water in front of us. Finally we were called up to a small room
to get a briefing on scuba diving. It was a small room with a lot of people and
it was really hot. We were given the low down on how our dive would go, safety
tips and different hand movements. I missed about ¾ of that talk because I thought
I was going to throw up but it all turned out ok and we were back in the fresh
air in no time. 
