Bali-n

Sunset over small surf on the Indian Ocean

Awesome. So far this time around our trip seems more like vacation than the last one did. Maybe its the extremes we pushed ourselves to in South America. Possibly the cold, the altitude, the bad food, I just don't know exactly. But here in Asia so much of our time is spent sweating, that to work too hard would be foolish. The locals pace is the proper pace. We wouldn't want to go streaking past anyone on the streets or beautiful beaches because there isn't anything that requires that speed of life. It's about taking it slow and taking it all in.

Kelly taking it all in

Bali is an interesting little place. It is part of Indonesia which is predominately Muslim but the majority of Bali is Hindu. We landed in Denpasar with what seemed to be ALL the other tourists because it took an hour to get through customs. The cab ride to our hotel showed densely packed streets well lit with both neon signs and barren bulbs alike all with the promise of delicious mie goreng, snazzy tank tops, happy hours everywhere and cheap massage. A torturous ride through gridlock traffic with these amazing potential stops right outside the window of our cab proved sufficiently enough that this was a place for hedonism. Upon writing this I realize we didn't really take any pictures that display the tourists or nightlife of Kuta. So here are some monkeys instead.

Macaques macaquin'

Bali is one large island of about 4 million people overrun with tourists mainly hailing from Australia. Western Oz is a short plane ride away and this seems to be a weekend or weekday pleasure for every last one of them. In short, it is a party all of the time, everywhere you go. The town we stayed in was called Kuta and has some good beach and reef breaks very near for our surfing pleasure. We were able to rent boards from any number of people lined up on the beach for about $5 a day and follow that up with a beer from the same guy's cooler upon return or hiatus.

Our room in Kuta, probably the nicest of the trip

Not too much gnar to shred on Kuta beach but fun long boarding anyhow

The streets are at all times teeming with short shorted, neon colored tank topped Australians and then clones of every type from any other number of countries. They all seem to mean well and are just out to have a good time, but it smacks of a lawless dirt-roaded Vegas without the gambling, or a nicer Mexico without all the beheading. You can wander the streets for hours looking for the cheapest foot massage or Bintang (local pilsner), and eventually be rewarded with your discovery that will save 20 cents. We argue over paying $7 for a back massage because this place has air con or $5.50 here where it doesn't and the argument makes sense. In a world where that small change makes all of the difference when its all said and done whether or not we can eventually make it to Vietnam it makes a lot of sense.

Temple entrance

 It is pretty easy to live like royalty here, and pretty easy to see why it is so popular of a place to stay for good too. There is culinary variety and activity abound. We made it a point to surf every evening because there is no better place to be when a blood red sun sets over the Indian ocean than on said ocean with no one obstructing the view. The beat of live music pulses over the waves from the beach behind us as we arrived just in time to enjoy a week of celebration with the Kuta beach festival. Seems to me that it is simply a celebration of this place being so worthy of celebration because the weather will not ever change too much and it wasn't an actual holiday. So we would turn out boards in after sunset and get a drink, watch the live bands cover popular music well but butcher the lyrics, and then head inside for some air conditioning.

Out later for dinner and the crowds we noticed for the first time the huge memorial to the people who died in the 2002 club bombing in the middle of the most popular intersection in town. The 10 year anniversary was also during our stay and we met an older Aussie couple who were there and helped with the survivors as well. It was actually supposed to be a very dangerous time to visit unbeknownst to us. We saw an interview over breakfast the morning of the event with the bomber's widow and daughter and the daughter said she was very proud of her father and what he did because the people he killed were sinners. Insane. 202 dead.

2002 club bombing memorial in downtown Bali. This was the night of the ten year anniversary.

On a lighter note, the majority of the Balinese are Hindu which is a pretty peaceful religion and makes visiting the temples of the area very interesting too. After seeing so many ruins of the Incan culture in South America it is nice to see something so utterly different. There are temples all over the place and many of the homes have areas dedicated to shrines as well. When visiting the temples, all people must have their knees covered so there will be someone out in front with a box of sarongs to loan. I tie on my dress and we get in.

That is a borrowed sarong. But damn is it slick.

We visited a very nice temple complex in Ulu Watu, south of Kuta, called Pura Luhur that has a serious macaque infestation. These monkeys range from tiny kitten sized young to 20 pounds of shrieking fury. Generally pretty tame, they feast on bananas that are available for purchase at the temple gates. We had some good times playing with macaques.

Gotta cover them knees.

Hungry little fella?

Pura Luhur

Pura Luhur

After 6 days in Kuta it was time to leave the party. We were getting entirely too comfortable there and had even begun to work out a nice routine for ourselves waking up late, going for a run on the beach, taking a dip in the hotel pool, getting a late lunch, surfing, getting a drink at the beach fest, massage, dinner, and all over again. Nice as could be but we need our trips to be about growing a bit and getting out of our comfort zones...at least a little.

This was the nicest part of our Ubud hostel. To show the inside or the bathroom especially would be a health code violation.

View from our Ubud balcony over rice patties.

We went to a place called Ubud next which is from Eat, Pray, Love fame. I have not read it nor do I know the actual connection but the place seems like it is perfectly designed for single 30something women who are on a spiritual quest but don't want to have to get dirty or work too hard or change themselves. If you like Marie Osmond or Subscribe to O magazine then you will love Ubud. Otherwise its just okay. There are so many boutiques its all too similar to nice parts of Santa Cruz, or hippie chic parts of San Fran. A little too granola and expensive for my taste.

I don't want to get too ahead of myself though because the place does have some redeeming qualities. There is the monkey forest which is again infested with macaques. Same little buggers going for your pockets and baring teeth cause you wont give up your sunglasses. These monkeys are generally tame but can be assholes so we were warned not to go in with anything we didn't want nabbed. With no real incident we got some cool pictures and passed an afternoon. The live music in all of the open air restaurants was a serious plus and the smell of incense while always accompanying your day in Bali was particularly strong.

Kelly belongs in the Monkey Forest

Speak no Kelly

We took a walk to the Elephant caves temple which according to our Lonely Planet was only 2 clicks out of town. After walking the narrow strip of path next to bustling roads flooded with truck and mo-peds alike for an hour we popped in to a shop to ask the proprietor for directions. She noted that the Elephant caves were still 20 minutes down the road and this road was decidedly narrower that it had been so we flagged down a passing car. We asked the driver for a price to the temple and he tried to charge us 50,000rp ($5) but we got him down to 20000rp. Well it turns out after about 20 seconds driving down the same road we passed a sign saying 100meters to the caves, so one woman's 20 minutes is another's 2. Bummer.

Elephant Caves

Thinking of putting down roots in Bali

Half the teeth but twice the personality. This man may have married us.

 Once at the sight we got a good look around and got some pictures. There were no elephants. There were caves. We were not going to subject ourselves to that walk again as it was really starting to heat up so we tried to get a ride from the bunch of locals sitting around the parking lot only to be turned away as they were paid to await their fares who were still in the temple. Back out to the street and hitchhiking we almost immediately flagged down a little orange van full of schoolchildren and the driver said he would get us back for 10,000rp total ($1)! Turns out he was a school bus and they don't mind filling up every available space. The kids were nice but they must be from the rich school cause for the most part they were too busy playing with their blackberries to make conversation.

School bus

That evening we fulfilled one of Kelly's desires and took a yoga class with a practicing yogini. She set up our space in the yard of a very well manicured bungalow. We had incense burning and canangs around.

Yard Yoga

The canang is a small prayer box offering made daily out of banana leaves and filled with flowers, coins, rice, crackers, holy water, and anything else. They can be found in front of and inside every shop, taxi, restaurant, and hotel everyday.
 
Our class proceeded for about an hour and a half and was pretty mellow and easy stuff. It was deemed Balinese yoga and was too tame for my preference but both Kelly and I are more often practicing flow or vinyasa yoga. All in all it was very pleasant though. We finished with a very nice meditation guided by her instruction with a perfect voice, accented and knowledgeable.
The next morning we departed Ubud en route to Nusa Lembongan, a small island 15 km away from Bali. And we will pick up from there.

Here is a Google Map of the places we have been on this trip so far.
https://maps.google.ca/maps/ms?msid=207622343178957417675.0004cdbb0406b83aa8795&msa=0&ll=1.713612,104.458008&spn=11.729528,21.643066