Bali - One Foggy Volcano and Most Expensive Coffee Made of Cat's Poo

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So, after the hectic KL, we took an Air Asia flight to Denpasar, Bali to get away from the hustle & bustle of a busy city. Only to find out Bali is not necessarily a quiet place either.

Well, that's not necessarily true - we went to stay in one of the busiest parts of the island, namely Kuta, which I now understand when they say Kuta is Australian Spain… Anyway, when we landed in Denpasar, it was hot - our prayers have been heard!

We set off to find some decent guesthouse and ended up in a place called Suji Bungalows: a charming place with a swimming pool. That was rather nice. And the even nicer thing was the price we managed to haggle: £7 a night per person. We did haggle hard but the thing that helped us massively was obviously the fact it was a monsoon season. I don't quite get it, well, apart from Tioman situation of course, but most of the time monsoon doesn't really make that much of a difference. It's usually 15 min of rain some time in the evening and/or a bit of rain at night. As far as I'm concerned, that's totally doable. I don't get it why prices suddenly tumble down. Not going to complain about that one but can you see what I mean?

So, what's Kuta like then? Well, it's not pretty and the beach is disappointing but it's certainly not boring either. The nightlife is big - similar to Bangkok if you happen to be out and about at around 3-4am, which means seedy and quite off-putting (seeing white boys with Oriental hotties really brought back memories of Thailand). During the day, it's also very busy, especially when you think of how many cars and motorbikes there are and how tight the roads get: there is enough room for one car, so if you are coming from the opposite direction, you do need to park up somewhere to pass through. Quite annoying, even if you are a pedestrian as sometimes there isn't enough space for you either! It wasn't an unusual sight to see people glued to the walls in an effort to make more room for the passing cars...

The one great thing about Kuta are spas. A typical oil full body, 60 min will cost you the equivalent of £4 - now that's something to get excited about! We found a lovely place where we were getting discounts every time we went - kinda of a win win situation really. 1st time around, we got ourselves a pedicure and a foot massage. Now, I don't think any of us ever had our feet so soft!!! We literally couldn't believe the result! I mean c'mon, my sole was softer than a baby's bottom! I didn't think that was even possible! It then turned out walking felt so much more pleasant as well - go on, try it yourself!

Kuta is also great for typically Balinese souvenir shopping. They also have all the D&G and Ralph Lauren Polo shops, practically on every corner. Not that I'd encourage to shop there but it was quite difficult to let it go unnoticed. Going back to the souvenirs though, there are plenty of beautiful handmade things such as plates, baskets, table cloths, pictures, lamps - just anything to do with households. Shame it's all pretty heavy - makes it rather difficult to actually buy these things and carry them in your luggage with all these weight limitations on flights. Emirates was fine but Air Asia was only 15kg allowed, which is a challenge if you do decide to buy things.

Anyway, apart from shopping, and watching surfers break the waves, you can also do quite a few day trips as Bali is a big island with lots to see and do. We wanted to do something more substantial than just going off to see a waterfall or something along these lines, and got on a tour climbing a still active volcano called Mount Batur, 1,717 metres. We were picked up at 2am and taken to the bottom of the volcano for 4am where we started climbing with torches as it was pitch black. All that time we were praying for it not to rain as it's really not fun climbing a mountain when it's slippery and dark… One thing though - lava rock doesn't get too slippery so it would have been doable but still.

Anyway, so it actually didn't rain but we forgot that we should have really been also praying for the lack of fog… The bottom of the mountain was alright but as we were nearing the top, it was getting really foggy to the point that when we actually climbed the summit, we could have been anywhere! A bit disappointing as I wanted to look into the crater and stuff. If you want to know what the volcano looks like, you can check it in here as I ain't got a single shot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mount_Batur2.JPG I had to check it out myself as it would have been the weirdest feeling to climb a mountain and not know what it actually looked like!

One thing I have to mention about the climb was our guide. I can't remember his name unfortunately but the thing about him was that he was a bit weird. As we were passing by this temple nestled half way up the mountain, he decided to take some time out and perform some religious hokus pokus that looked like a prayer. It would have been fine but no other guide did it. Plus, religious people scare me a bit anyway. They believe in the illogical and so it's really hard to predict how they are going to behave. Going back to the guide though: on the way down, when it was lighter and you could actually see all the frozen lava, he spotted Chessy's trainers and he obviously liked them as he decided to ask her what size she was, while staring at the shoes. Then, some time later on, he says that there was this German tourist there once who gave him his bag - he said that and guess what he was staring at? Yes, Chessy's trainers. Now, I'm quite convinced Chess would have been going down the mountain in her socks if she had been there on her own. He also didn't help himself when he said to her that she was strong like a man - maybe that was his thinking process: "I could just go for these trainers and do a runner but then again, she looks pretty strong, so it might not work that well." The bottom line was, Chess happily reached the foot of the mountain wearing her running shoes and the guide couldn't do a thing about it.

On the way back from the volcano, our driver took us to a beach called Dreamland Beach. It’s a relatively short stretch of the beach but it has pretty good weaves for surfing making Dreamland Beach a perfect spot for surfers and backpackers. As you can imagine, it's pretty hard to swim in those waters due to strong currents, so you just have to want to watch how fit blokes break waves :o) I've no idea why this place is called Dreamland by the way. Not sure it deserves the name as I've seen better beaches in the time I've travelled. Having said that, the water's got absolutely beautiful colour and everything's pretty chilled there, so it's not too bad. Still, not so Dreamland-like if you know what I mean.

We visited a couple of more places on the way back - one of them being this coffee plantation place where I learned the most surprising thing ever. Well, let me start with this: have you heard of coffee called Kopi Luwak? Do you know one cuppa of that brew actually costs around £50? What's so special about it? Ha, here's the thing: this coffee is made from an animal's sh*t. Yes, you read it right! There's this wild cat living in Indonesia who eats coffee berries. Those berries pass through the cat's digestive system without being digested and come out the other end. Apparently, the amazing flavour of the coffee is thanks to the enzymes in the cat's digestive system that treat the berries before they come out with the rest of stuff. Now, my question is, who on earth thought of trying that sh*t in the 1st place?! Seriously… The funny thing was that that evening, we got The Bucket List with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman and Jack's character loves drinking this coffee not knowing what it's really made of. Morgan's character enlightens him on that matter - that's quite a funny coincidence that we actually learned about the whole thing earlier on that day!

Enriched by that experience, we moved to Uluwatu - a temple nestled on top of a cliff. The whole area is full of monkeys hence us not wearing sunglasses on all our pictures and squinting mercilessly as a result. We were warned to put the sunglasses away as those monkeys seem to like them for toys. I did see a monkey with a tube of Pringles - that's someone's snack gone.

Uluwatu was beautiful - you can see the stunning views on photos and can probably appreciate they looked even better real...

That was it from Bali for us. We decided to go to one of the Gili Islands just off Lombok. Chessy's family friend is building a house there and wanted us to go and have a look. Plus, we read that there are no cars or motorbikes there and so decided that was it - a perfect spot to relax and get some sunshine! More on Gili and how to get there in the next instalment!

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Photos

Padang Padang Beach
surfers paradise