BALI

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I leave the familiar country of Australia to go somewhere completely different and strange to me... Bali, Indonesia. Maartje and I get money out at the airport... What's the exchange rate here?? How much money am I even taking out?? Haha, confused already. We learned later that the exchange is 10,000 rupiah to $USD1... this is awesome!


We headed outside to catch a cab: 50,000 Rp and that was expensive. We get to Kuta and after a little confusion we finally found our room and settled in. (You can't book the cheap hotels online so we were relying on our friends to book us in and the people at the counter couldn't find us.) A quick stop at the store and we met up with Tates and Lucie and were on our way out to town for the night.


We spent a few days hanging out in Kuta. Maartje had a friend there so we hung out with them a few nights and took a trip to the Bird Park/Reptile Park and then a Safari Park. The Bird Park was pretty cool, we saw a lot of native birds. We even got to hold some of the birds. After the birds we got to see some pretty sweet reptiles. We got to hold a lot of them too. Again, I'm not sure what all the animals were. We went to some sort of zoo and got to take pictures/hold/pet lions, leopards and monkeys. AMAZING!


We spent a few more nights in Kuta enjoying the night life and the beach. I got a pedicure for $4, Bali was so cheap! I went out surfing twice and got to ride some of the best waves of my short surfing career. It is so much fun and I can't wait to do it again!


I took a 1-day tour with 3 girls to see a bit of the country. We headed north out of Kuta to our first stop which was a view overlooking some rice paddys and mountains. Then we stopped by the side of the road to hold a bat, a huge snake, and an iguana! We made a quick stop in Lovina to see the black sand beaches and have lunch. Then we stopped by a mountain lake then passed the monkey forest. There were monkeys running all over the place by a little turn off on the road. I asked our guides what kind of monkeys they were and he said "normal." Haha! It was truly a crazy site though, monkeys everywhere!! Then we headed to see the Gitgit waterfall, a 40m waterfall in the middle of the jungle, beautiful! The next stop before heading home was the Banjar Natural Hot Springs, where we had a swim for an hour. It was beautiful and very relaxing! I spent the last day relaxing, since I was not feeling too well. Sick while traveling is never fun.

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Comments

[anonymous]

Beautiful country and animals! We are happy you are having such a wonderful experience. We think of you often... Love, Toni and Phil