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Published: April 9th 2009
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Monkey Forest
'...and how do we get around these guys?' You guessed it, I've made my way to Southeast Asia! For over two years I've been dreaming of traveling this part of the world, and now I'm here!! Sometimes it's even hard for me to believe. About two weeks ago I booked my flight from Sydney to Bali, a small island in Indonesia. Leaving Australia, I didn't really plan what I was going to do with my 5 days in Bali. I knew that I wanted some good beach time as well as experiencing some Balinese culture. I didn't even know where I was going to stay my first night, but I wasn't worried because I had heard that you often just walk up to your chosen hotel/homestay and bargain a good price. Which is a whole other basket of problems because I am pretty bad at bargaining, and I mean utterly aweful! I always give in way too quick or just decide not to buy it. But I guess that's one thing SE Asia will teach me, how to bargain!
My first few minutes in Bali consisted of walking out of the airport and being blasted by a wall of humid heat, despite being 11pm. Silly me, I was still
Rice paddies
just one of the amazing views while cycling through the countryside in my jeans and instantly regretted not changing before venturing outside. It was pretty overwhelming walking out the doors and seeing a giant group of men all yelling 'Transport?', 'Taxi?', "Where you going?'. I pretended like I new what I was doing and kept on walking. Once I had my wits about me, I ventured over to a booth with a big sign reading 'Accomodation' and asked about a possible room in Kuta, about 10 minutes drive away. I had done my research and knew most places, the backpacker kind, offered rooms around 80,000 Indonesian Rupiahs. (about $8 USD!) The lady quoted a place for 250,000. Nope, much too expansive. I tried to bargain the price down, but of course I failed. I then asked about cheaper options and she said their were some, but not through her company. She had me talk to a taxi driver who could take me to a cheap place, so again I try to bargain a decent price to Kuta, but without any luck. In the end, I made it to a hotel where I failed to bargain down the 125,000 price, but at least I had a room to myself and a bed
to sleep in!
My first day I walked around Kuta a bit, but quickly arranged for transport to Ubud, a smaller village surrounded by rice paddies. Kuta was pretty overwhelming because it's the big party/beach scene with heaps of people on the street trying to get you to buy whatever they're selling. You can't walk five steps without hearing 'transport? transport?' and being ushered into some shop. So I made a quick getaway to Ubud, 'the beating heart of a thriving cultural scene' as my Lonely Planet guide nicely describes. During the 2 hour drive, I got to chatting with a dutch girl in the van and upon arrival, we decided to join forces and look for accomodation together. As soon as we stepped out of the van, we encountered 'Come with me. I have good place!' So we followed one of the nice men to his house where we were shown the immaculate room with two twin beds and our own bathroom with promised hot water, all for the price of 45,000 each! We gladly accepted his offer and settled into our lovely room. It turns out we were staying at this guys house in one of his six extra rooms. It's common for every house compound to have three different parts, the head, the body, and the feet. The head is where they have their own personal temple. This is a separate structure often with a gated entrance and elaborate stone carving set up inside. The body is the sleeping bungalows, and often the biggest bungalow is given to the oldest member of the family. It's quite common for the whole family to live in the same household compound. The feet is the dirty part of the compound, where one family had their pig farm but later converted it to a lovely garden. In our situation, I'm not sure where our bungalows were located in this scheme, but it was a lovely little complex complete with a fountain and fish! And to top it off, every morning we were served banana pancakes with fruit and tea. Just lovely!!!
The first day in Ubud, me and Eva (the dutch girl) walked around town going to the Monkey Forest where monkeys roam everywhere and often attempt to catch rides from passers-by. This made it quite nerve racking when a monkey is sitting in the middle of the path and you have to figure out a way around them. Half the time I was too worried about the monkeys jumping on me to really appreciate what I was experiencing. The next day we did a 3 hour cycling tour through the rural villages. It was so fun to cycle through this area, passing by rice paddies where people were harvesting rice. The local guides also offered heaps of information about their culture. We also passed tons of temples where they were preparing for the evening ceremonies. Ladies were walking down the street with giant fruit pyramid offerings balanced on their head. Incredible! And every village we cycled through, all the small children would line the street yelling 'hello' and 'I love you', probably the only english they knew. It was so cute! Sometimes they'd line up and wait for us to hit their hand as we rode by. We even stopped at one of the elementary schools and mingled with the kids during their recess. They all gathered round us and proudly practiced their english phrases. They all had such big smiles and were so willing to talk with us. Truely beautiful! At the end of our cycle, we had a feast of a lunch at the owners house. Different dishes of Balinesian food followed by passionfruit for dessert. It was delicious!!!
After getting back to the homestay I was ready to hang out and relax, but another backpacker had book a trip to a temple on the west coast to watch the sunset. Our host was driving him and offered a better deal if more people came. So both me and Eva decided to join him. We drove to Pura Tanah Lot, a temple surrounded by water (at high tide). We enjoyed the sunset from a cafe on the cliffs edge while sipping some delicious juices. Even though it was pretty cloudy, I could only imagine watching the sun slowly lower behind the temple from our amazing vantage point.
Tomorrow I'm heading back down south to get two days of beach time before I fly to Vietnam. So far I'm loving Bali and know that I'll have to spend more time exploring Indonesia because it's full of beautiful landscapes and beautiful people!
check out some more pics at
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Mom
non-member comment
I wanna go!
Sounds like a great adventure Anna. Beautiful sights and distant, diverse people. Safe journeys and enjoy the beach. Loving you- Mom