My 6 Week Asian Adventure: Bali

Our hotel is right near the beach, less than a 5 minute walk, and our balcony over looks the pool, I’m so tempted to jump right off into the pool but it doesn’t look deep enough! The hotel is very Indonesian, it’s great, I love it! The room is pretty big too and it’s nice to have our own space and not be in a hostel for a few days!

The view from our balcony

Of course Meza had already rented us a car and a driver for out time in Bali! We got to see a lot more of the Island than I had expected, which was really great! On our first morning we went to the Barong play. The Barong is a mythical animal which represents a good spirit and the Rangda ia a mythological monster that represents an evil one. The play is about the eternal fight between good and evil. The back drop of the stage is a Hindu Temple, which are everywhere on this island! Bali is mostly Hindu and the temples here are very different from the ones we saw in Jakarta and on the island of Java.

The Barong

scenes from the play

After the play we went to the beach all day, it was great! I’d say it’s about 100 degrees here and the sun is really strong. Even though I put lotion on all day I still got burnt! While Katie went scuba diving, Meza, Icha and I got to relax and tan on the boat. The water was so warm and clear, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky!

I also went parasailing for the first time!! It was soooo much fun, I can’t wait to do it again! I’ve never seen parasailers take off from the beach before, only the back of a boat. But I took off from the beach with a running start, and yes I did scream a bit when I first took off but after I got in the air I really enjoyed it! The water was so clear I could see the bottom and I had great views of the Island from the sky! When I was landing they kept yelling at me through the mega phone to pull harder on the blue rope, but I was pulling my hardest! It took them a few jumps before they could actually reach my ankle to pull me down and I thought I was going to be flown away!

Icha & I getting ready to parasail

That's me!

After this the 3 others went “fly fishing”. We don’t have anything like this in the states. To me it looked extremely scary, but they loved it. They got into a giant inflatable ‘kite’ and held on to two handles then were pulled from behind a boat and the float went about 25 feet in the air and they flew! I just went along for the boat ride and took the pictures!

Katie getting ready to go fly fishing

The four of us tubing

We took a break from the sun and had lunch at a restaurant on the side of a cliff over looking the beaches and houses, it was picturesque! We walked around the Garuda Wisnu Kencana Cultural Park afterwards/ The Garuda is the national bird, even though it is a mythical bird. The statue is huge and it’s not even complete yet!

Meza & I in front of the Garuda statue

For the rest of the late afternoon and early evening we went to Dreamland beach and relaxed for about an hour. Then we went up to the infinity pool and lounge/restaurant area right on the beach. We got to watch the sunset from the pool deck and it was beautiful!

Dreamland Beach

Watching the sunsut from the beach cliffs

We came back to the hotel and showered, then walked around Kuta Center, the beach area where our hotel is, and had a really late sushi dinner!

Today we went to Kuta beach for a few hours to enjoy the sun. It was so hot I had to keep jumping in the ocean to cool off! The waves were pretty big and some people were even surfing right in front of us! The real surf beaches of Bali are located in a different area of the island. We went shopping in the market next to the beach and I bought a dress for 60,000 rupiah ($6.30) with a little bargaining help from Icha.

Drinking cocnut water on the beach, yes I do love Bali!

Then we headed to Ubud, where Julia Roberts is filming the movie Eat, Pray, Love, but we didn’t see her, or the set for that matter. We stopped at a gold and silver store and a Hindu Temple on the way. We had to wear a sarong in order to go inside. Everyone has to wear one, men and women, because the don’t believe in sewing so wearing pants is rude and it’s also rude to wear skirts that aren’t long enough.

Katie & I in sarongs inside the Hindu Temple

We went to the Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary in Ubud. There were hundreds of monkeys, it was so cool! All I could think of was how much Uncle Jerry would have loved it! We bought some banana’s and fed the monkeys. They came right up to us and took them out of our hands. Meza was holding a bunch of banana’s and a big monkey came up to her and she got scared and threw the bananas at Icha who was even more frightened and threw all the bananas at the monkey! I tried to get them back but the Monkey growled at me. It was pretty funny. Then we got baby grapefruits to feed to the monkeys. I was holding the bag and two monkeys attacked me! They didn’t hurt me at all, they were actually pretty gentle but one jumped on my arm and another clung to my dress. Do you know how scary it is to be surrounded by 10 hungry monkeys when you have a bag of food in your hand?! I was pretty freaked out so I gave the bag of grapefruit back to the guy showing us around and opted to only hold one at a time after that. It was a really cool experience though to be so close to that many monkeys, and the baby monkeys were so tiny and cute!

I got to fee the monkeys!

This is the monkey who stole all our bananas

There are so many art galleries and furniture/antique shops here. The artwork is gorgeous and I really want to buy so many pieces, but I don’t feel like lugging them around with me for the rest of the trip. And the mirrors and dishes! I wish I already had my own place so I had a reason to buy them! O well, that just means I have to come back again so I can!

We also saw some rice paddy terraces in Ubud before heading back to Kuta.

We spent the rest of the night shopping in Kuta, we got some great dvd’s for less than $1 each! We had sushi again, and I finally got the chance to try jellyfish!

It was something I wanted to do in Japan but could never find it on the menu. It was very chewy and jelly! Now we have to pack for our early flight to Kuala Lumpur tomorrow morning. I don’t want to leave Bali!! The beaches are so nice and clean and the people here are so nice! I love be in the tropical weather and will definitely be back here one day ( I hope!)