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Published: February 22nd 2012
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Well, our 10 days in Bali is up. To be honest we were a little worried, as we had recently heard that is was the rainy season and that despite it's reputation Bali is not known for its beaches.
Wow , how lucky we were to have had the opportunity to travel to Bali. Now we know why people come to BALI.
We were also very fortunate to be here during the Galungan and kunningan celebrations
Galungan, one of the most important festivals in the Balinese calendar, is a time when the spirits of ancestors return to earth to live with the family. The spirits are said to descend five days before the festival begins and to return to heaven ten days thereafter.Towering bamboo poles are erected outside every gate, turning simple lanes into avenues of magnificently decorated penjor -looped scrolls of coconut leaf, decorated with vividly colored leaves and tied with sheaves of rice and pieces of fabric, with intricate weavings of young coconut leaf and flowers dangling at the ennd.
The Kunningan festival is held ten days after the Galungan Festival, signifying the closing of the new year holiday. On this day, special offerings made
of yellow rice and special dishes are offered, while every family compound and temple looks amazing with ornaments.
After changing our original plans to just relax on a beach bungalow for 10 days, for us Bali has been a cultural learning experience . From the many traditional dances , costumes and Balinese rich cultural. the scenery is stunning with every shade of green imaginable from the palm and towering cocconot trees, bamboo forrest to incredible rice terraces.
We started off in Sanur from the airport a 70000 rp (7.50$ ). The town is nickname snore for a reason.so we only stayed one night. from there we took the bemo (bus) to Abud (Eat,prey and love was partially filmed there) this is when we realize we made a good choice. As soon as we got off the bus, a small balinese man asked us if we had a place to stay, and how he can offer us accomodatation for 100,000 rp quiet and breakfast included. From our experience we usually ignore the touts (named in thailland and vietnam) but for some reason we let him guide us. We followed him to where we found out later was his home,
where they had just built a small bungalow for guest, we were the 2nd guest they had. The entire family lives on the property 7 brothers , wifes, niece , nephews plus mom and dad, theres not really a house, some small shacks/cabins and 1 building as a central kitchen, they also have a large family temple that is adjacent to our bungalow. So we stayed there for 3 nights, for 10 usd it included breakfast, water,tea and coffee, plus they kept offering us fruit.
Ubud is perched on a gentle slopes leading up towards the central mountains. The village focuses on its remarkable balinese culture. We went 2 night straight to 2 different balinese dance performance. The 1st night included 7 types of dances meaning differentt spiritual and cultural stories with a gamleland ochestra. The 2nd night we experience our 1st ever Kecak and fire dance, Kecakk is of the clasical dance style, and is performed by over 100 dancers and singers. The music is unique to this performance, as there are no musical instruments, the souds are human voice and some hand clapping.
Another day we took a tour with one of the brothers who's a
taxi driver, we were gone for 10 hrs. We started at a coffee plantation where we had some Kopi LUWAK coffee , it is very expesive coffee, not sure if I should tell you why. Ok here goes, a small civil animal called paradoxunus, the locals call them luwaks, they live in trees and one of there favourite food is the red ripe coffee cherry. They eat the cherries bean and all. While the bean is in there stomach it undergoes chemical treatment and fermentation. The bean finishes its journey through th digestive system, and exits. The still intact bean are collected from the forest floor, and are cleaned then roasted and ground, just like any other coffee. The resulting coffee its said to be like no other, it has a rich heavy flavor with hints of caramel and chocolat. Now you know the story. We enjoyed drinking it for the novelty of it. Our 2nd stop on our tour was as interesting ,but more scenic. Volcanic Gunung Batur and lake batur, we drove around the outer crater rim and could see Mt Agung towering in the backround , bali's highest peak and is often in a veil of cloud,
it stands at 3142 m above sea level. We stopped for lunch in Lovina a relaxed, low-key, low-rise beach resort. Further west Mundok is a pretty village perched high (actually just the drive in it self was worth it). We stopped for a dip in some Banjar hot springs before we continued to the incredible RICE terrace in Jatiluwih while the sun was setting. What a joyous day we had. The remaininig days in Ubdud were left wondering the streets and restaurents.
As for the rainy season, so far we only encountered 1/2 an afternoon of rain and part of a night(the only reason we knew was because of sandals were wet outside our bungalow that morning)
Our next Bali destination was Nusa Lembongan a small island off the coast of Sanur. We booked a shuttle + boat together for 110 000 from Ubud. We heard that nice beaches are to be had there , no atm's and no cars. We found budget accomodation close to the docks and rented a scooter to travel around to Dream beach and Mushroom beach , i guess they were wrong about Bali beaches, you just have to look harder to find
the really nice one's. Dream beach had a resort overlooking the beach and a 2 tiered infinity pool , at happy hour non-guess had access to the pool, you dont have to asked us where we were for happy hour. It's the Bali we imagined. We still wanted to experiece more of Bali so we only stayed 3 days. Again we only had rain overnight.
Kuta-Legian-Seminiak are 3 towns that link 1 beach together. It is the #1 tourist location and has a decent beach, the airport is located at the Kuta end of the beach. We knew we would end-up there eventually. We based ourselves in Kuta for the remaining days and from there we did our exploring by scooter. It did rain that day, but I was prepared , I had brought the poncho that was bought for Costa Rica over 6 years ago and hadn't been used, didn't realize it had a huge canadian flag on it. We only had the one so try to imagine us on the bike with sean and i heads in the one hole , sean's arms in the arm hole. i'm sure we looked quite commical but at least we
were dry. Once we got to Ula Watu on the bukit peninsula the rain let up and sun came out. Ula Watu is a legendary surf spot area. We also stoped at Dreamland beach, not to be mistaken for dream beach, although quite similar in beauty. The swim was dreamy :-) The other days were busy walking from kuta to seminiak and back. We think 4 klm one way.
In Bangkok we will be leaving 1 backpack for storge at wendy guest house, we are travelling light to southern thailand , and spoil ourselves with a flight to Phuket instead of the 12 hours bus ride.
Looking forward to sea kayaking, cave hunting, diving(Sean,) snorkling and maybe rock climbing(josee).
Stay tunned
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Melodie
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this is cool looking