Bali

Hi,

From the 5th Oct to the 22nd the office has been closed here because of Lebaran, a holiday to celebrate Idul Fitri, the end of Ramadhan and the fasting month. Most muslims go back to their families for these two weeks, normally in the villages and celebrate by having big parties and eating lots!!

So this was an ideal time for me to have a nice little holiday to visit Bali. Bali is the quite unlike the rest of Indonesia culture wise as the majority religion is Hindu. There are many temples everywhere you go in Bali and many are big tourist attractions as well as places of worship. Most people also have shrines in their homes where they offer food stuffs and light insence sticks at many times during the day.

Bali is really lovely and I can see why it's such a big toursit attraction. It is low season at the moment so pretty quite which is good for getting cheap prices for everything! There were still loads of big groups of Japanese though and lots of Australians. Also a lot of french..
J'ai fait un tour d'Ubud pour la jour avec un couple francaise et un homme espagnol. La dame francaise ne pouvait pas parler l'anglais tres bien et l'homme espagnol est un diplomat et a ainsi parle tres bein beaucoup de langues donc nous avons converse pour la partie principale dans le francais, ou essaye au moins! Und auch habe ich mich in Nusa Lembongan zwei deustche Madchen getroffen, und so sprach ich Deutsch mit ihnen und ihnen English zu mir. Es hat sehr gut for meine Sprachen gewesen!

When I first arrived I stayed in Kuta, in the South, the livelyest resort with a very big beach good for surfing. I met some Kiwis there, one, Meng, who stays in Bali for 6 months then home for 6 months... and spends his time surfing pretty much all day everyday! He lives on this little lisland off Bali called Nusa Lembongan and so persuaded me and another Kiwi, Jordan, to go and stay there for a few days. The island was really nice, much quiter and more relaxed than Kuta. I found a diving school there and did my PADI open water course. Being as it's quite season and we were on a pretty remote island I got one to one tuition which was very good! The island istelf is v small only two small villages, most of the locals farm seaweed just of the beach and then there are quite a few bungalows for tourists to stay in but other than that lovely and peaceful. V good for seeing the sunset from too..

After finishing diving I went back to Bali and stayed in Ubud. A town almost in the middle of the island, famous for having lots of arts and crafts. I really liked it there. There was lots to do, lots of beautiful rice fields to take walks through and loads of shops and nice cafes, also v many spas so v good for getting a massage after all the exploritary walking! There are loads of tour operators offering trips around the area too so I took up some of those. I went on one which took us around lots of Hindu temples (with the french couple and spanish diplomat), including the 'mother temple' of Bali which is on the slopes of Mt Agung and v impressive.
I also took a differnet tour to climb Mt Batur, an active volcano, to see the sunrise. We had to leave at 2:30 am for it but it was worth it as had really amazing views of the sun rising over Mt Agung.

My last few days, while trying not to think about having to return to hot Jakarta (I'm back there now and had almost forgotten how much hotter it is, I'm in the air conned office and it still feels 'sticky'!), I spent back in Kuta in the south. Def not as nice as the other places I went to as just too busy and touristy, I did manage to fit in a few surfing lesson though so that was worth going there for even if now I do ache a little from it!

love xxxxxxx

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