Bali

I’ve been in Sydney for a couple of weeks and now heading to Bali for a proper restful (I hope!) holiday. The flight from Sydney should be just over 6 hours but we get diverted to Darwin to pick up extra fuel because of weather conditions… so we arrive very late to Denpasar. Luckily we are met by the manager of the villa we’ve booked so we don’t have to worry about finding it or how we get there. It’s 2am going to bed and a thunder and lightening storm hits for about three hours. I’ve never heard rain so heavy and it’s really hard to go asleep…. Cool to be in this place with the rain outside though!

Today we are going to need a restful day so after a bit of a lie in we head out to check out our local surroundings and hit the local supermarket for some essentials.

The house is amazing, it’s as much an outdoor house as it is indoor and it has a jungle vibe to it.

The streets are narrow, noisy and chaotic. Mopeds, scooters, motorbikes whatever you like to call them are everywhere and there doesn’t seem to be any rules of the road! Along the streets are shops, cafes, restaurants (called warungs) and so many tattoo shops! There are small offerings of flowers, placed on the ground, outside most shops or restaurants so between trying to avoid those and the dodgy paths you need your wits about you!

It’s all about the sunset in Bali …

We decide to join the masses for a cocktail while looking out at the ocean. There are so many people on the beach at this hour, I’ve never seen anything like it. We pass the famous La Plancha which seems a bit too busy and noisy for us but we’re keen to sit for a bit and check out the local music. Every beachfront establishment has a little stage with musicians each one vying to be the loudest!!

It’s a lovely temperature to sit outside so we have a couple of cocktails and some grub before walking back to villa

Next morning we take a walk to the market but it’s very quiet and a lot of stalls have already closed up. Everyone seems to be making the little offerings that we’ve seen.. maybe it’s some sort of feast day.

We continue a big walk around the main road and end up at the restaurant we want to try for lunch called Pork Star… we have pork 4 different ways and a lemon Bintang -love it!

We have a rest for the afternoon and I cool down in our very own pool

This evening we walk to the beach and check out the sunset – it’s a beautiful one tonight. We settle on a Thai restaurant on an outdoor veranda at the back of the Main Street so it’s nice and quiet.

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This morning we do a big walk (along different noisy chaotic streets!)

On the way back home we pass the memorial to those who lost their lives in the Bali bombing in 2002.

In the afternoon we are driving to the southwestern tip of the Bukit peninsula. En route we pass a parade heading toward the local temple…

We are heading to the giant statue that you can see from our beach at Seminyak – it’s at GWK – Garuda Wisni Kencara cultural park.

The statue is quite new, commissioned in 1993 and finished in 2018. It depicts Lord Wisnu, the preserver of Universal Equilibrium, riding the great Garuda, his trusted companion; representation of a human who endures a life of great responsibility.

It is the strangest “cultural” park we have possibly ever visited and we are somewhat perplexed!!

We continue climbing upwards and check out all the weird and wonderful statues until we get up close and personal to Garuda himself .

From there we continue the journey further south to Ulu Watu and the famous Pura Luhur Ula Watu temple. It’s perched on the tip of the peninsula with a sheer cliff drop that’s very popular to visit… it is packed with tourists and you can only imagine the posing that’s going on for photos.

Against our better judgement we are talked into getting tickets for the Kecak, which is a dance show. It starts with 70 men singing … well singing is a loose description of what they’re doing – they’re certainly making sounds… tika, tika, tika, tika, it’s interesting for about ten minutes and then it’s just a bit hard to listen to. There’s dancers who are telling s story about a goddess and a king and Garuda… it’s all a bit hard to follow and during the show people are jumping up to take photos of the sunset and monkeys are also causing commotion at the back. We are sitting right at the top and a monkey comes right up behind us and steels glasses from a young lads face… not sunglasses, his proper “I can’t see without these” glasses and runs off. The poor lad got a terrible fright. With the help of a steward he managed to get them back but it caused all sorts of commotion while the show was in full swing.

We were hoping to have a seafood dinner at one of the restaurants at Jimbaran beach but they are closed because of the festival that we saw happening earlier in the day. A bit disappointing but there’s a “restaurant” that Nyomen recommends where he knows the owner and Shane can get a fish head curry so needless to say “we” are delighted!! I have fried tuna which is very nice but served completely on its own, (where’s me chips!!) Afterward the ladies ask if they can take a photo with us… I feel like we could be up on their wall of fame!!

This morning we are off to explore more of the island with Nyomen. We start with a visit to a beautiful garden in the Celuk area that makes the famous luwak coffee. This little guy eats berries and poops out the seed which is essentially the coffee bean… yep you heard me right!! They’re washed (thoroughly!!) and made into the coffee.

We get a short tour and description of how the coffee is made..

and then have an opportunity to sit in the garden and taste some…

I don’t taste the luwak coffee but Shane is only delighted to. I’m happy to taste some teas though and I particularly like the lemongrass and mangosteen which I buy to bring home… apparently it has all sorts of health benefits!

Before we leave we check out the garden which is lovely and has a swing that I’m tempted but ultimately too scared to try. [We didn’t realise at this point but we’d see a lot more of these swings later!]

Although Bali is a fairly small island it takes a long time to cover any amount of ground because the traffic is horrible … there appear to be no clear rules for driving, who has right away etc and there are virtually no traffic lights (we saw a few on some “main” roads). So although we’ve only gotten started on our tour we already need to head to our lunch destination which we are very excited about as we are tasting babi guling (spit roasted pig) for the first time.

The location of the restaurant called Pande Egi is tricky to find as it’s in the middle of nowhere!!! But it’s beautifully situated along a rice paddy and the food is great…

While trying to find the restaurant I noticed signs for a waterfall so we decide to check it out.. it’s called Kanto Lampo…..

Next it’s onwards to Ubud and the rice terraces. We drive on some quiet country roads through some beautiful scenery….

……..so much quieter out here in the country and we see real farmers at work…

Then we arrive to the tourist destination “rice terraces” – pretty to look at but a bit “Disney-fied”!

You have to pay to look into the valley as the view is blocked by shops and cafes. It’s full of those big swings and places to take photos in – love hearts, nests (yes nests a couple can sit in) and of course you can imagine the serious amount of posing going on. Instagram has a lot to answer for!!

We continue on the Sacred Monkey forest sanctuary (another tourist trap if you ask me!), passing through small villages and seeing people heading to temple for the festival.

The monkey sanctuary is a strange place…. we walk around the gardens which are full of statues and monkeys! Apparently this place is the natural habitat of the Balinese long-tailed macaque.

Time to go home and hit a local warung for some Indonesian food which is always very tasty and spicy but generally served cold (ish) but on hot rice!!

We’re really enjoying our time at the villa, it’s so relaxing… we put up with the cat and might even be getting a little fond him.. I think he likes Shane more than me as I run away every time he tries to rub against my leg…. He cries and knocks on the door when we put the tv on so we let him in for a little bit ….

There’s a brunch club “porn cakes” that’s supposed to have amazing pancakes so we check it out… they’re soufflé type pancakes… quite strange as you can see from my face! By the way another thing about Bali is you can wear your beach gear all day long and everywhere you go!

We decide to have Nyoman take is back to Jimbarun (where the restaurants were closed due to the festival a couple of nights ago) and we walk along the beach which is a lot quieter than our local 66 beach.

You can see the big Garuda statue from here…

We have dinner at the New Moon cafe at a lovely table in the sand and enjoy a margarita while watching the sunset…

It’s our last day and we need to be out of the villa by 11am but our flights are not until late that night so we book ourselves into the hotel next door which has a pool and let’s us check in at 11:30… fantastic! It has a rooftop pool and an interesting view from up high! Who’s idea was this – genius!!

Our final meal is lunch and we head to Warung Kampung where I have my final nasi goreng of the holiday… it is delicious!

A swim and some relaxation time and then it’s off to the airport and goodbye to Bali…

We have had a lovely relaxing time and maybe we’ll get to explore other Indonesian islands in the future. Pamit dumun Bali!