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Published: August 23rd 2008
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Tepi Sawah Villa
Which means "Beside the rice fields..." Hi everyone,
Well, this blog is long overdue...since we've already sent out Indonesia, Part I a few weeks ago, and the actual trip was back at the end of June...but, here it is anyway!
So, last we left you we were on the beautiful island of Lombok (just east of Bali) in a southern city called Kuta. Well, we had a WONDERFUL time in Kuta, but now it was time to fly over to Bali and see what that island had to offer. We were especially excited because of all the amazing stories we've heard about Bali...and let's not forget the song about Bali in the musical
South Pacific! 😊 We began our Bali adventure in the beautiful, centrally located mountain town of Ubud.
Ubud was recommended to us by a friend who had been there before...He said that it wasn't as touristy as most of Bali was, and was a little more laidback than the club-hopping scene down on the Bali beaches. He also said it was really nice for couples, and so we were willing to give it a go...and were very happy that we did! Ubud was a semi-quiet little mountain town, but had lots
Our outdoor shower
Thank God it was not like the naturistic shower we experienced in Boracay, the Philippines. going on. It was here that we took a Balinese cooking class (although Larry was fighting off some "Bali belly" and was feeling a little sick that night), went white-water rafting down the famous & GORGEOUS Ayung River, and hung out downtown where we shopped, got really cheap massages and had a wonderful dinner at a little place called Nomad's. On our last day in Ubud, we visited a monkey forest (I was a little scared...I had read a lot of blogs beforehand from people who claimed the monkeys stole their things, threw poo and even bit them! Luckily, no such things happened to us...although we did see a little girl almost get attacked!), saw the popular Balinese rice terraces, went to a Hindu shrine, had lunch on a peak overlooking Mt. Batur and its lake, and then visited the popular (we read David Beckham's been here with his family) Taro Elephant Park. This park was one of my favorites...we got to ride an elephant named Tia and watch some of them paint pictures! We wanted to buy one, as we thought they were unique and the money went to a good cause...but in the end we decided they were
TOO expensive (over $100) for a paper with a few strokes of paint on it that looked like a kindergartener had done it. Maybe when the artwork goes on sale...we'll reconsider! 😊
I must also mention the hotel that we stayed at in Ubud. It was called "Tepi Sawah Villa" - 'tepi sawah' meaning
beside the rice terrace...which is exactly what it was - there was a beautiful one right outside the window of our room! The whole place was so aesthetically pleasing and peaceful...full of statues, a beautiful pool, an open-air bathroom, and little lizards (a cute one that even hung out on the wall of our open-air bathroom!)
So after our big tour around Ubud on our last day, we finally headed to the popular beaches of Bali - the one we went to was called Kuta Beach. We stayed at a lovely Mercure resort (same company as Novotel - which is now one of our favorite hotels!) which we mainly chose for the pictures of the beautiful infinity pool that it had. To compare though, we actually liked the beaches of Lombok that we stayed at (also, oddly enough, called Kuta)...better! They weren't as touristy
and the people were a lot more outgoing and sincere than here. At Kuta Beach, Bali, most of the vendors and people we met here seemed to have dollar signs in their eyes as they spoke to us, not really caring about anything we said unless it had to do with the amount of money we had...and as one taxi driver put it "All Americans are rich!" So I guess that pretty much sums up the way they felt about us!
But it's OK...because we still had a good time. Besides doing the usual shopping and eating (Made's Warung was our fave!), and the not-so-usual timeshare adventure we were taken on our last full day, we also had a surfing lesson (Larry was great, I sucked - and sucked in a whole lot of ocean water too!) and had a wonderful seafood dinner on Jabarah Beach. This beach was beautiful, but also a little sad, as only a few years ago a large area of this beach was bombed by a Muslim terrorist group. A lot of restaurants were destroyed and quite a few people were killed. Actually, one of our waiters told us that he was working at
Tepi Sawah - grounds
The entire complex was designed with aesthetic beauty and tranquility in mind. I loved it! a restaurant next to one that had been bombed, and retold the painfully sad event to Larry and I. He told us that even his hair had caught on fire! And that's, unfortunately, another reason why Larry and I didn't love the Bali beach as much as the others we visited - sometimes it just didn't feel like the safest place to be. Even heading to our hotel in a taxi was no simple task, as we were stopped by guards each time so they could check for car bombs under the vehicle, before we could pull closer to the hotel. (A few years prior to the Jabarah Beach bombing, there was a hotel bombing that had an even higher number of fatalities). It was very, very sad...but we were at least glad to see that the people and their tourist economy were still flourishing.
Well, it was almost the end of our Indonesian travels, but before we could head back to Korea, we had to first get on a plane and head back to Lombok - then to Jakarta - then to Hong Kong. In Lombok, we stayed the night at a beautiful resort in Sengiggi Beach (called
Statue 1
Here's a few pictures of the statues that were placed throughout the villa grounds. the "Sengiggi Beach Resort" - and we would totally recommend it by the way!) which was not too far from the airport as we had an early flight the next morning. After seeing this place though, and remembering that we had only paid about $40 to stay here...we wished that we had had more time to spend on this beach as well. The next day, in Hong Kong, we decided to have a night layover so that we could relive our fun Hong Kong vacation from last year...and also visit some of our favorite shopping districts! We also went to a really cool place for dinner that overlooked the harbor called Aqua. They had 2 different restaurants in one - Aqua Roma (Italian cuisine) and Aqua Tokyo (Japanese cuisine) - which was cool b/c you could order from both menus!
Anyway...that's the end of our Indonesian-with-a-touch-of-Hong Kong exploration! We hope you all enjoyed our stories and memories...Thanks for reading!
Love,
Larry & Melanie
Indonesian for the day: "Sampai Jumpa!" - GOODBYE! 😊
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