Blogs from Lovina, Bali, Indonesia, Asia - page 5

Having exhausted every potential site of interest in Lovina Karen and I headed east by Bemo to the town of Singaraja about five klicks down the coast. Singaraja is the second largest city in Bali with a population of 100,000. The majority of Balinese live in the countryside tilling the soil and producing crops of rice, tobacco, coconut and corn among many others. Singaraja was established as the Dutch capital of Bali in the 19th century. Apparently the Balinese put up quite a fight when the Dutch decided to move in but after discovering bullet holes in a few thousand of its citizens Bali quickly gave in to the wooden shoe crowd. Singaraja has a fairly large regional market. It is well organized by Asian standards and we were pleasantly surprised to see that the meat ... read more

After a week in Lovina the rhythm of the day has been established. We wake at 5 and spend time reading until breakfast at 7:30 when the kitchen opens. We seem to find ourselves the only hotel guests more often than not. This is the slow season for tourists. They call it the ‘rainy season’ here but there is little rain in actuality. When it does rain it does so for only a short period in the afternoon and is nothing like the daily summer deluges we are accustomed to in Florida. We swim and catch some sun in the late morning. The sun here is beyond anything we have experienced before. If we have errands to do like shopping or checking e-mail we have to do it before ten in the morning. Otherwise the heat ... read more

Travelled from south to north of Bali yesterday and treated myself to staying in a hotel with hot water, lights and a balcony and of course the coconut palms. The tourist bus is great ..such a variety of people from all over the world on one bus. And it's cheap!!! The journey was fab...through forests, rice paddies and rain !! Sadly Lovina is still suffering from the lack of tourism and the competition to sell you things on the beach verges on the irritating especially if you already have sarongs and don't want to buy shells ! Even when snoozing or reading there are interruptions. However I then feel guilty and instead of being rude , smile and speak 2 of my 4 Indonesian words. Seems to work anyway. But some know my name and where ... read more

We enjoyed a lazy final morning in Ubud before we needed to catch our bus to Candidasa. I took the opportunity to visit the local pasar (market) and browse around. We bought Wes his first ever mangosteen (he was as unimpressed as I was with my first one, although I have come to enjoy them more over time). We wandered through dozens of stalls of clothing, vegetables, spices, fruits...and finally found our way back to the street unscathed and with all but the money we'd spent on mangosteens. The Perama bus left on the late side, a little after 11 am. We traveled with about 12 other tourists to the port town of Padang Bai on the eastern end of Bali. They were largely there to catch the ferry to Gili Air off the coast of ... read more

Well we have had another great day yesterday on our way to Lovina. we travelled all through the middle of the country with our driver Ketut very Hati-Hati (carefully!!!) we stopped at the volcano museum and there were some great exhibits in this modern museum. would be lots of fun for the kids. we eyed out the monster Batur which until very recently has been erupting on a small scale. You can still see the lava flow as new growth has not taken hold of it yet. the surroundings were spectacular with the mountains surrounding the lake. it was lovely and cool up here. as we drove through this very fertile area there were lots of mandarins (naartjies to us locals) on the trees and in the market stalls along with tamarillos - which i had ... read more