Blogs from Ubud, Bali, Indonesia, Asia

Bali was a jinx trip. I reached the wrong terminal and because of uncooperative KLM staff, I also missed the flight despite reaching there 45mins in advance with a web check-in done. I decided I shall still fly and not succumb to stupid rules. I took another flight and landed in a relaxed Bali as planned. At the Bali airport, I felt as if I was in mini Europe with whites everywhere as I was standing in the queue to apply for visa on arrival. I slowly lifted my left foot to see a pink chewing gum stuck. Welcome to Indonesia! Bali is a carefree land. I noticed that Ubud on volcanic rocks is so fertile that wherever you look there are terrace farms of rice. There are temples too made of dark rocks characteristic of ... read more

Alarm set for a wake up call at 6.45 as Luke and I were off on a white water rafting adventure on the Ayung River. Our guide was a guy called Salenko which sounded more like a Lithuanian Basketball player than a Balinese Rafting Guide. Our bus picked us up and we travelled around 30 minutes to get to the place where the rafting starts. We were given our helmets and life jackets and an oar to paddle with and the guy said to Luke off you go down those steps. We were about to venture down the side of a cliff face about 100 metre drop to the river floor. These were no ropes or handrails and most of the steps were pretty big by normal standards. However they were made with concrete and were ... read more

The new Mataram Airport at Lombok gave a hot welcome us. By luck we found a new hotel ( Central Inn) which is really centrally located in Sengigi. We enjoyed the place for few days and visited Mataram Town, Kuta Beach and A’an Beach on the South of the island. We spent another day on Coco Beach on the way to Gili Islands pier. We passed to Gili Islands for only two nights to refresh our memories and continue to Bali Island by speed boat. The boat company took us from Padangbai Pier and in one hour we were at our spectacular hotel in Ubud on Monkey Forest Road. Ubud is a lovely town full of art. We enjoyed the dinners at Ibu Rai , historic restaurant of sixties and had a visit to Tegallalang town ... read more

Yesterday the festivities were in full swing for the Balinese New Year's Eve festival... starting at 4 a.m. in the morning. I love Bali and I love their traditions....even the ones where you bang the pots in the wee early morning to scare off the evil spirits and wake up slumbering tourists like myself. Before I even opened my eyes, I heard the roosters going and the clanging of pots and drums. I couldn't help but laugh because any other place in the world, this scenario would not have flown so well within any city, village, town. Have I told you I loved Bali? At 7 a.m. I headed down for my cup of coffee and met humidity and the smiling faces of the family members living next door. Staying here in a home stay and ... read more

And finally I made it to SE Asia after leaving NZ and a short stopover in the Brisbane airport. I had been in Bali in 2002, 3 weeks before the bomb attack in Kuta. I remebered it being sunnier, not as dirty and with lots of tourists and topless girls in the beach. It might just have been that I was in Bali during the high season or that I had an idealized vision of the place. This time, there were still a lot of tourists, but because it was the end of the rainy season, it was mostly clouded and partially raining. And Kuta was a lot more contaminated than I remember. I arrived at around 2pm in th airport and the first thing I did after getting my backpack was negotiating a taxi from ... read more

Os balineses são um povo sem sobrenome. O batismo se dá pela ordem em que as crianças nascem na família. Via de regra, o filho ou filha mais velhos se chama Wayan, o que vier na sequência Made, o terceiro Nyoman e o quarto Ketut. Em bahasa indonesia, a língua nativa de Bali e do restante do país, esses nomes indicam, respectivamente, se o irmão é o numero 1, 2, 3 ou 4. Se por um acaso a mamãe balinesa tiver forças para uma quinta criança, o ciclo do batizado volta para o início e a criança tambem se chamará Wayan (ainda que nesse caso existam mais duas ou tres opções, como Putu). Confuso? Imagina como deve ser a chamada na escola.... Para facilitar um pouco a vida, os balineses ganham um segundo nome que serve ... read more