Bali

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For the last 9 days we've been relaxing and having fun in Kuta on Bali, before we are constantly on the move in Australia. Its quite a touristy place, but we've really enjoyed it, as it has a really nice vibrancy about it. There are also plenty of things to do here, lots of bars and clubs and loads of nice places to get some good western food, which has been a nice change from the normal Indonesian choice of fried rice, fried rice, or... fried rice. What's also made a difference is being with a really cool group of people; Mark, Johan, Rinaldo and Rowena, who we travelled from Mt Bromo with. Its been great all chilling on the beach together in the day and then having dinner together at night, we also got them hooked on the card game Yaniv!

Rather than solely lazing around on the beach, Paul also tried surfing for about 5 days. Days 1 & 2 were more a case of paddling around, getting battered by the waves and generally just failing to surf! However, on day 3 he finally cracked it, learned to catch the waves properly, get up on the board, and he surfed quite a few waves right into the beach! He's now addicted! Unfortunately Kirstie was too worried about the really strong current to try but had lots of fun jumping over the waves and working on her tan instead!

On the 20th we all went out for Mark's birthday to check out some bars around Kuta, at which point we also discovered "Jungle Juice" which is a mixture of orange juice and the locally distilled Balinese spirit called Arak, it slipped down all too easily! After many a shot, we somehow made our way to a sports bar at 3am to unfortunately watch England lose the rugby World Cup Final.

A couple of days later we were all driven around some more southerly parts of Bali by a guy we met on Mt Bromo. First we stopped at a gorgeous part of the coast called "Dreamland" so named for its beaches and perfect surf. Unfortunately the son of ex-president Suharto has also taken a shine to the area and somehow "acquired" all the land from underneath the villagers who've lived there for years. He then proceeded to force them all off the land, so he can ruin the area by building a luxury resort and golf course, plus charge the public for access. Don't you just love corruption! Next we stopped at an unremarkable beach called Padang Padang which you had to get to through a cave. We then moved onto the highlight of the day, watching a perfect sunset at the clifftop Hindu temple of Uluwatu surrounded by lots of fat monkeys.

On the 24th we took the shuttle bus to the little arty town of Ubud, where we spent the afternoon wandering around small art galleries, cool cafes, rice paddy fields and a very tranquil Hindu temple surrounded by lotus flowers.

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Photos

Uluwatu
L-R: Mark, Rouena, Johan, Rinaldo.

Comments

[monic]

i like bali so much,its a beautifull place in the world.so,thanks for indonesia...................