ART COMES TO VISIT- BALI!

February 2011

Bali is one of my new favorite places in the world--the food is amazing, the people are SO friendly, the sights are gorgeous, and the Balinese culture is still very well preserved despite all the tourism. Filled with rice paddies, temples galore, nature, beaches, there is a reason why people call this place paradise!

We booked our flight through the Holland airline KLM, but they overbooked the plane and put us on a Singapore Airlines flight instead (and gave us 50 EURO credit!). Singapore Air was the best airline I've ever flown on...we had our own TV's and even got tiramisu ice cream in coach class! Unfortunately, the flight was very short and I couldn't finish "The Town" :( I wanted to stay on the plane longer!

DAY 1

We stayed at this beautiful little hotel called the Taman Harum Cottages just a little outside of Ubud. It was surrounded by beautiful gardens, wood carvers, artists, and a beautiful pool overlooking some rice paddies!

Some fried noodles with prawn crackers for breakfast every day!

Hotel Pool

Outside our room...

View from the open-air bathroom!

Sleeping inside a mosquito net is like sleeping in a fort!

So relaxing...we had breakfast at the hotel and then our driver came to pick us up! His name was Ketut (like the guy from Eat, Pray, Love), but we soon found out that everyone's name in Bali was either Ketut, Kadek, Wayan, or Nyoman based on the order of your birth. So there are a lot of Ketuts (4th son) in Bali!

Our first stop was the Go a Gaja Elephant Cave, where we got duped by this man who I thought was an official tour guide, spoke no English and just pointed to things and said "temple"..."Elephant Cave"...we tipped him a little at the end but we learned quickly not to just let people guide you aimlessly!

Then off to Tirta Empul and Pura Gunung Kawi (my FAVORITE). These temples were surprisingly filled with locals and not tourists, which I really liked :)

Art with Ketut, our driver

Beautiful rice paddies at Pura Gunung Kawi

We also stopped for some Kopi Luwak, the most expensive coffee in the world since it's made from the poop of the Luwak animal who eats coffee plants and poops out the bean.

Some delicious Nasi Campur for lunch overlooking more rice paddies!

Ketut was an awesome photographer and was super friendly, although his English we had a little trouble understanding sometimes. We then headed to Uluwatu to see the temple on the cliff and watch the Kecak (monkey) dance. It was really spectacular even though it was overcrowded with tourists.

At Uluwatu

The Kecak (monkey) Dance

Then we to Jimbarayan for a seafood dinner at Melasti (I thought this was a place recommended by Allie but our driver got it confused). We had some delicious fresh grilled fish, shrimp in butter sauce (YUM), and some mussels.

DAY 2

We didn't have anything planned this day and after a lot of deliberation, we decided on white water rafting since it's something I've always wanted to do (and its about 4x cheaper to do it here than in the states). I was quite annoyed because the tour driver was about 1.5 hours late, and then we had to walk down about 500 steps (of rock/nature/trees) to get to the river. But the rafting guides were really awesome and fun, and ours kept making us stand up so we'd fall once we hit a bump! One of the other rafts got filled with water and everyone had to evacuate, but we were with the head guide so he took good care of us...he also told me that he eats monkeys after I told him I wanted to go the Monkey Sanctuary. Pics from that are on the underwater camera...to come later...

On our drive back, our driver delegated his nephew to take us, who ended up being the best English speaking guide we had the whole trip! Unfortunately Wayan was already booked for the week, but for our next trip we're definitely booking him! www.balifriend.com

That night, we went to bed early because we needed to get up at 3:30am to watch the dolphins at Lovina! So we stayed in, got some delicious fried banana dessert for room service, and picked a classic from the DVD library at the hotel, "Hot Tub Time Machine"--I actually really enjoyed it...

DAY 3

We woke up at 3:30am only to find that Ketut never showed up! After waiting an hour, I called Agus, his boss who I booked with, and he was very apologetic and offered us a free driver for the day. I was a little annoyed, considering we gave Ketut a really big tip the first day, but later found out he had fallen ill :( So we went back to sleep and ate a delicious breakfast of fried noodles and prawn crackers at the hotel until our new driver, Kedek came to pick us up! He looked exactly like the Indonesian Tiger Woods. SEE BELOW!

Dopplegangers?

First, we went to Nusa Dua (a very overcrowded beach) where I wanted to go parasailing but they said the conditions were not good :( So we went to Turtle Island, where we got to hold real sea turtles and even ones that weighed up to 50kg! Art and I had some trouble with this...I mean, I kept up my end...

There were also other random animals around...

At one point, I turned around only to find Art surrounded by a group of Balinese girls asking to take a picture WITH him! I highly enjoyed this. Art felt like a celebrity.

We then hit up Tanah Lot, close to where Allie and Ben stayed, which was very beautiful but overcrowded with PRC tourists! boo...they would hog all the good photo spots for like 20 minutes! Anyway, I got some holy water and rice blessed on my forehead and we left since it started raining (it rained almost every night we were in Bali because it's monsoon season!)

Kedek then took us to eat some local "suckling pig," which I thought I would enjoy, but ended up being a little freaked out by it...they roast an entire pig and then pretty much eat every single part of it. I was really proud of Art though--he ate the whole thing! I went to the night market and got some chicken satay ;)

We ended the day with Kedek with him taking us to his local village to watch a beautiful religious ceremony. Each town in Bali has its own traditions and they have a ceremonies ALL the time. This particular one happens every 6 months. This was one of my favorite experiences in Bali...Kedek knew everyone in town and we even got to meet his wife and son! The women in the procession carried these giant "offerings" on their head--Balinese women are SO amazing and can carry pretty much anything on their heads. The men marched in the back beating drums...they were all so friendly toward Art and me, obviously not from their hood, and encouraged us to take pictures!

So even though this day started out with a no-show driver at 3:30am, it ended up being a great one after all :)

DAY 4

We spent our last day in Ubud, since it was so close to our hotel and we hadn't even gone yet! The hotel had a free shuttle into the town, and we ended up riding with this French guest who was in search for some Balinese furniture for his friend's hotel back in the south of France. However, our first stop was the monkey sanctuary! Allie had RAVED about this place, and since we both really love wild monkeys, I took her word for it. I was not disappointed. The monkeys were SO cute and not shy at all! We learned that the ones at Uluwatu are not fed on a regular basis so they are a little more vicious/scary and will always take your stuff in exchange for food. These monkeys are well fed, so they are more cute and playful than anything. We bought bananas, and hid them so that they would not come all at once! The baby monkeys were absolutely adorable... I wanted to take one home! One of them I thought wanted just to climb on my shoulder but he ended up ripping off my earring! Luckily I found it quickly in the fountain...sneaky little guys! After 2 hours and a 200+ picture photo shoot, we finally left and went to eat at Dirty Ducks, home of the original Balinese "crispy duck." It was pretty good, but it was all tourists, and the service was really poor.

Probably wasn't smart of me to bring my banana colored purse to the monkey forest...

Do it like they do on the Discovery Channel...

We spent our last few hours getting Balinese Massages (about $7 for an hour), and the lady made me go topless! I was really embarrassed, especially when I had to lay on my back...I started giggling and she sensed my nervousness and put a towel over my chest.

We walked around Ubud with all the art galleries and shops, and I fell in love with yet another part of Bali! Here is a local wood carver at our hotel.

Kedek ended up driving us back to the airport (since he was a lot cheaper than our hotel transfer), and we had just enough Indonesian rupiahs to spend on a few souvenirs. I spent a little too much time deciding on what to buy, and by the time we got to the border patrol, we had about 40 minutes left before we realized that you also need to PAY 150.000 rupiah to LEAVE! As we had NO more money left, Art ran off in search of an ATM which ended up being very very far away, and after you paid you have to go through ANOTHER line to get your passport stamped! We begged the officials to let us through and we finally made our flight (last ones on--they were calling our name on the intercom) with 5 minutes before takeoff! Art was really stressed out but I knew we would make it :)

We went from millionaires to nothing...

Since we were only there such a short time, I didn't get to see everything I wanted to--Lovina (to see dolphins), Ulun Danu Temple, Tamanayan Temple, and more, so I am already planning my next trip to Bali!!! I <3>