BALI

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Bali was my vacation trip. If I were to sum up the entire trip, I would describe it as a series of sunsets and sunrises. I left on a Wednesday afternoon, thereby missing quite a lot of class; but I ask myself, “how often am I in SE Asia?” That is how I justify skipping out during the middle of the week. Anyways, I traveled with two Americans (one being my roommate), two Scandinavians, and a Canadian. Bali is an Island that is part of Indonesia; the people down there are primarily Buddhist. They’re economy is based on tourism if you’re by the beach, or rice farming if you live inland. The currency in Bali is the Indonesian rupiah, 1 USD=10,000 INR. For this trip I tried to learn some useful phrases, this is what I had in my arsenal:

Ya-yes
Tidak-no
Tolong- Please
Terima kasih (banyak) - thank you (very much)
Sama sama - you’re welcome
Ma’af- I’m sorry
Di mana-where
Berapa harganya- how much
Mahal-expensive (when bargaining if I didn’t like the price I would drag this one out and say mahaaaaaaaaaaaaaal in almost a whine, that seemed to get me a little respect because it was a word they understood CEARLY)

The trip to Bali was exciting because it was my first time ever in the southern hemisphere of the world. It was about a 2.5 hr flight to get to Bali. When we got off the plane, the first thing I realized was that I was cold. The temperature seemed much cooler because, unlike Singapore, there was little to no humidity. Now don’t get me wrong, the temperature was probably high 70’s low 80’s, but to me, that is awfully cold. We got there at night and there was also a light breeze; during the day the temperature would easily jump back up to the 90’s in the full heat of the sun, which also unlike Singapore, was never impeded by clouds. From the airport we took a cab to Poppies 1 Ln. on Kuta Beach; it had hotels and low budget hostels strung all along its length. We stayed in the AP Inn, a cheap hotel, because with the great exchange it wasn’t very expensive. I stayed in a room without air con with two other people and we each paid about 12 USD/ person. It was a dirty, lower end hotel, bordering on a hostel, but it had a pool with a poolside bar and also a restaurant which is always a nice touch. That night we walked to the end of the street, got dinner at the Hard Rock Café (my first hard rock experience ever) and then explored a little before heading back and getting to bed.

Day 1
The next day we chilled at the beach, which was just at the end of the street. Bali apparently has some of the best surf in the world, so when in Rome. We rented surf boards for about 3 USD / hour and we got out there and went to it. Luckily my roommate has gone surfing before so he gave us the general idea of how we were to do things. I can proudly say that I stood up and stayed up a total of two times during my hour of fun. I will also say, I’m not sure if it’s a better idea to learn with 6 ft. waves or 2 ft. waves, but I’m pretty sure it was way more fun to try the huge waves than to start with itty bitty ones. So it was pretty good for my first time, but after my hour I was DEAD. I was totally content to lie about on the beach for the remainder of the day. Nothing particularly exciting happened for the remainder of that day. We chilled on the beach; I burnt my legs, forearms and face; and we left the beach at the appropriate times to enjoy lunch and dinner.

After dinner we went back to the beach to see the sunset, which starts around 6:00 and goes till around 7:00. It was gorgeous. The sun set right in the middle of the ocean; and it was amazing to see it slowly sink into the water, and you could look directly at it as it became red smoldering sphere as it made its descent. This was Sunset number one. We were fortunate to see the sunset every day, and they only got better with every day that we were there.

After the sunset we headed away from the beach and up another road looking for a place to relax. We found a cheap bar that was having happy hour, so we sat down, ordered a few snacks and then listened to a live band as we drank 2 for 1 of Bintang Beer (Indonesia’s Beer). After about an hour there we continued up the street when we came across a club that was giving out free VIP passes to tourists. So we walked up and we discovered that the club was ONLY for tourists, which was fine by us. Before breakin’ it down on the dance floor, we went to find the bar. To our joyful surprise, the bar had just started a free flow (open bar) of beer, strawberry daiquiris; long island iced teas, and mojitos. Needless to say, we had ourselves quite a time there. We spent a total of about 2 hours there dancing, partying, and meeting other travelers. It was our most active night, and we didn’t wake up till 11:00 the next day, which was three hours later than we had originally planned, but oh well.

Day 2
Day two, we went to the beach to enjoy some more relaxing time. In the afternoon half of us took a ride down to Ulu Watu, which is officially one of the best beaches for surf in the world. We didn’t go down to surf because we would have killed ourselves on the jagged coral, but we wanted to see it. We rented scooters, got lost a few times and had to ask for directions, but we made it eventually. You have to walk down some steps cut into the rock walls surrounding the beach in order to get down by the water. The water, as you will see in the photos, was pristine. It was crystal clear, and a brighter blue than the clearest skies I have ever seen. All the oceans in the world should look just like that, and then I would actually like the beach.

So we hung out there for a while, took a quick dip, and then headed back north to Seminyak which is a town just up the coast from where we were staying. We were planning to meet some friends for dinner in the sunset. Unfortunately we didn’t run into our other friends, but we did find a 5 star hotel, Arantaya, with a sky bar over the ocean from which we could view the sunset. So we lounged across some padded chairs/beds (you have to see the pictures) and watched the sun go down. We also enjoyed some food and beverage; I had some awesome chocolate fondue with strawberries, pineapples and marshmallows which I washed down with a great banana shake. After the sun went down, which was glorious from our location, we went downstairs to the restaurant and have a 5 star dinner. The owner of the hotel was from Italy, he seated us himself, and so they featured a great Italian menu along with a Thai food menu. Why Thai food in Indonesia, I don’t know, but they thought it was appropriate. I had the chef special, Grilled New Zealand Lamb Rack Cutlets, it was the tenderest meat I believe I have ever had in my entire life. It was a 19 dollar meal, which is very expensive for Indonesia, but like I said, this was my vacation trip so I was splurging. That night we went home and to my recollection went to sleep early.
Some quick things that happened before we went to sleep: another traveler joined us from Singapore, and we booked a volcano climbing tour that started the next night at 1 in the morning.

Day 3
All our company decided to head north to see one of the monkey temples on the Island. We all had our own scooters for the most part; I shared with one of the Canadian girls. We hadn’t travelled together for more than 10 minutes when we were separated into two groups. The people in the front (my group) made a turn and it was impossible for the back group to follow, as they would have been run over by other vehicles. Traffic in Bali is bad, not as bad as say Vietnam; they do still obey traffic lights, but that’s just about it. So myself and two other girls made it together to the monkey temple in Sangeh, Pura Bukit Sari. At the gate leading up to the temple there was a very large statue of a god. I was told he is the younger brother of a very powerful and good god. The younger brother however is mischievous, so the older brother sent the monkey king and his monkeys to go and beat him up. The temple itself was very small and unimpressive, but the monkeys were everywhere. I feel safe saying there were more there than at the monkey temple in Thailand. The forest surrounding the temple was by itself interesting. Tall nutmeg trees, with a nut that is not edible or useable in any facet, even the monkeys don’t eat them. They grew up to easily 100 feet, soaring straight up with branches only for the top fifth of the tree.

Interesting little episode at the monkey temple, there was a local family that was there visiting the temple and they wanted to take pictures with one of the girls I was with because they thought she looked like an actress. The man of the family then proceeded to have every male member of his family from 17-28 pose individually with her on the steps of the temple. So after about 7 of them did that, we made ready to leave the area, but then they asked me to sit down and the two of us proceeded to take 3 more pictures with the whole family. I did not look like a movie star…but maybe they wanted a package deal. We left shortly after that, around 5:00ish, and we raced back to try and catch the sunset on the water. We hadn’t missed a sunset yet and we weren’t planning on it. Thankfully we made it. We watched it from Arantaya with our lost comrades. They had also made it to their own monkey temple, and apparently they had also seen a lot more interesting things there than just monkeys. At the monkey temple they saw Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem (bad guy in No Country for Old Men). When we came home, we did some research and we discovered Julia Roberts was also down there in Bali. She and Javier are filming a movie. I couldn’t believe it when I found out. I would have scoured the whole island to try and get a picture with Julia Roberts had I known….oh well.

When we got back to the hostel, we had a little surprise waiting for us. Our Swedish member of the group had gone straight back to the hostel, as opposed to meeting us at Arantaya and met us just a few feet from our room, but he met us by stepping out of another room, that did not belong to us. He said to us, and I quote, “ok, just breathe, something happened, and I was freaked out at first, but now two hours later I am happy and eating chips, so it’s going to be ok.” This is when we noticed multiple articles of clothing hanging along the banister outside the room. Furthermore, in the room Christofer had just stepped from had all our bags and belongings spread out on the floor and dripping wet. We were then informed that our previous room had been flooded. Christofer found it with about 8 inches of water; the story goes that a tube connected to the cleaning system for the toilet had broken and thus, the great flood. Now this isn’t the type of thing that just happens. We have reason to believe our stuff may have been sabotaged by the hostel staff. Because almost all of us were going to spend the night climbing a volcano, everyone had left their stuff in one room and only 2 people had paid for the room. So we think that possibly the hostel staff felt it was being taken advantage of and sought to teach us a lesson, but it’s just a possibility and none of us actually think that….but we believe it’s a possibility. The hostel attempted to make well on it however, and our next night was free, at least for that one room’s worth of people. I got lucky, all my electronics (all I had was my iPod) were in the top of my backpack which was standing up, so only my clothes got wet. Other people were not so lucky however; two passports were destroyed (which is never good), and a camera lens to a GREAT camera was wrecked. It was a tough night.

The other big problem was in less than two hours we were going to be climbing a mountain, and all our warm wear, was now wet wear. We bothered the laundry lady and managed to get dry shorts and t-shirts, but I was without my jacket because it would never dry in time. Shoes were also impossible to dry in time; the laundry lady wouldn’t let us put them in the dryer, and she was convinced that the machine would explode if we put them in there. I luckily had my shoes on my feet during the flooding, but everyone else climbed up with wet shoes.

After we had dealt with our small disaster we only had two hours before we were to be picked up to go on our volcano trip. We spent it having a few drinks; because drinking right before you climb a volcano is always a good idea. The company we booked the tour through picked us up that night at 1. We then drove to another hotel 5 min. away to pick up two other travelers partaking in our tour. They ended up being other NTU exchange students from the U.S. which was kind of funny. It was a two hour car ride to the mountain during which I slept. When we got there, we already felt chilly. There was a fairly strong breeze, and most of our clothing was not quite 100% dry. Our party was equipped with flashlights, except for me, because I’m really cool so I brought my headlamp! So useful, and wicked awesome; not geeky or dorky at all.

The Bottom half of the climbing was all jagged loose rocks, but not very steep; comparable to the average path in the woods, but the path was all rocks. The second half was zigzagged back and forth, it became very tiring. The last 15 min, the path became just rock dust and black sand. This was much nicer on the feet, however it made the actual climbing much more difficult seeing as it was impossible to gain a strong footing. As we neared the top the sky began to brighten. About 20 min. after we had reached the summit the sun started to rise.

The sunrise was just as great, if not better, than the sunsets we had seen so far. As it rose higher, the taller parts of the landscape caught the light first and then slowly the light would trickle down into the valley crevices. It was so rewarding to have made it up there in time and see it. On my way up, my party had basically cried, complained and whined about the flood, their wet clothes, etc. This put an end to all that. I am confident to say that the sunrise was worth it to everyone.

The volcano had last been active in the year 2000, and we could see where it had erupted. There was a circle of black in the “plateau” at the volcano’s base. Anyways, my point here is that several hundred feet down there is still some hot stuff, and that hot stuff lets off steam that squirms through fissures and cracks till it finally escapes at certain points on the summit. We stood in these to keep warm; the top of the mountain was absolutely freezing. The locals, our guides, used the steam to hard boil eggs for our breakfast. Now, as we were standing in the steam, it wasn’t boiling by any means; but it would hard boil a couple dozen eggs in about 15-20 min. So for breakfast on top of the volcano we had some hard boiled eggs with banana japple, which is banana slices sealed inside 2 pieces of toast.

The way down was a lot more fun than the way up. In the sandy part towards the top many of us were literally skiing down the volcano (see my movie on face book, I’ll try and upload it some other way for you non face book users). It took us a little over an hour and a half to make it to the bottom. We were dead tired from being up 24 hrs and climbing a volcano, but we had a few more parts to our tour, and it I’ll be damned if I pay for something and don’t utilize it. So the next stop was a hot spring spa. The hot springs were generated from the volcano; it was unbelievably relaxing after a long tiresome hike. On arrival we got a complimentary drink; I had myself a cool pineapple juice, along with slippers and a scented towel. We stayed there for an hour soaking up the warm water in a tiled pool that looked over a lake at the base of yet another volcano. Absolutely beautiful.

From there, we were driven 30 min. (during which all of us fell asleep) up a hillside, on top of a mountain that stood across from Mr. Batur, to a restaurant. We had a buffet Indonesian lunch as we sat on a balcony overlooking the entire volcano and surrounding plateau. After a very filling lunch, I asked our driver to take us to the rice terraces. They first took us to a spice farm, which had rows of coffee beans, and plants that were used to produce other spices. THEN we went to see the rice terraces. It took another 40 min. to get to during which I almost fell asleep again.

The landscape of the rice terraces was beautiful. It was an awesome spectacle of the civil engineering and irrigation system. There were several hills that had ridges, small plots for growing rice, all the way up their sides. The rice runs the economy for all the Balinese living inland. Consequently, when it comes to rice, they don’t play around. There is no such thing as an infertile plot of land. They level it, get water to it somehow, and they grow that rice if it’s the last thing they do. If they aren’t able to do that, it may very well be the last thing that they are able to do. It was the second most beautiful thing I had seen in Bali, the first being Ulu Watu.

After that, we continued back 1.5 hours back to the hostel. It was 3:30 when we got back, the plan was to chill however we deemed fit, and then to meet on the beach at 6:00 to see the sunset and then do dinner together. I washed the day off in the pool before going away to the beach to relax and be by myself for a while. I lay on the beach, dozed off, woke up, people watched, dozed off again etc. My company met me around 6:15; we watched the sunset and then ate dinner at the Hard Rock Café. After we walked around, some people shopped; ultimately we went back, packed for the next day and went to bed.

We woke up the next day early, caught a cab and flew out of the country. Bali definitely one of the most beautiful places I have seen so far. It was a very relaxing trip and I had a great time. I’m so grateful to be down here.

The website for the pictures for you nonfacebook users is :
http://s867.photobucket.com/albums/ab231/gonyaj/Bali/

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