Blogs from Ubud, Bali, Indonesia, Asia - page 15

Note: I wrote this at the end of the stay in Ubud, Bali. It is not intended to be a generalization of the island, nor the religion of Hinduism, in general. _____________________________________________________ I think Jenn captured it best, “I want to subscribe to the Balinese religion”, referring not to the island’s majority religion, Balinese Hinduism, nor to the country’s dominant religion, Islam. (At this point, if you haven’t yet done so, check out my blog entry on Jakarta, then come back and follow along. The Indonesian islands of Bali and Java are vastly different places). There is something so seemingly simple, yet fundamentally obvious about how the Balinese people live their lives. Strangers, upon greeting you, clasp their hands together against their chests. This symbolizes harmony between good and evil at the moment. They will also ... read more

Despite our late night, we had to be up at 2am for our drive to Mt Batur. It was very exciting and exhausting at the same time. Both of us slept through the bumpy car ride to the base of the mountain. When we got there, it was about 4am and I was freezing cold. I was so glad that I wore jeans and a jacket. We quickly embark on our hike as we hoped to reach the summit before sunrise. The initial trek up was very easy. However, more than 3-quarter up the slop, I was hit by altitude sickness, and it was so awful. It was at that point that I realized how terrible for my preggy friends to be feeling constant nausea and my heart decided to be more gentle and sweet towards ... read more

Bali was a jinx trip. I reached the wrong terminal and because of uncooperative KLM staff, I also missed the flight despite reaching there 45mins in advance with a web check-in done. I decided I shall still fly and not succumb to stupid rules. I took another flight and landed in a relaxed Bali as planned. At the Bali airport, I felt as if I was in mini Europe with whites everywhere as I was standing in the queue to apply for visa on arrival. I slowly lifted my left foot to see a pink chewing gum stuck. Welcome to Indonesia! Bali is a carefree land. I noticed that Ubud on volcanic rocks is so fertile that wherever you look there are terrace farms of rice. There are temples too made of dark rocks characteristic of ... read more

Well I struggled to sleep through the night, and woke up early around 5am I think. I could not resist the temptation to check out the golf progress. No TV coverage but iPad had live scoring so into the toilet I go to check out the progress. Great news Jason Day birdies 3 holes on the back 9 to take the lead, but then gives two of them back. Adam Scott birdies the 18th to take the lead with one group to play. Bugger, Angel Cabrera birdies 18 and we have a play off. Common sense kicks in and I return to bed. Upon awakening Luke says “Dad did you hear about the golf? “ I played it down and asked what happened and he said Adam Scott has won in a playoff. You beauty an ... read more

Ubud was always somewhere we’d planned to go and were really looking forward to even before we left the UK, on our last visit it was one of the places we really enjoyed spending our time. It’s rich in culture and we found the people here a lot more welcoming & friendlier than those in Kuta. Thankfully we were not disappointed this time around and spent over a week here soaking it all up and left feeling more than a little sad that we had to move on and could have easily spent our remaining week in Bali right here. We knew that accommodation here in Ubud was of a high standard so spent a good hour traipsing around the back streets trying to find something we really liked, we were probably being a little too ... read more