Indonesia: Bali

Seminyak & Kuta

On my way from Kuta to Seminyak we get stuck in traffic, and as it keeps on getting worse, I decide to walk the last bit instead of staying in the car, and on my walk I discover the reason behind the traffic jam: A local ceremony is going on, right there, in the middle of the street.
Just another example that shows just how religious the Balinese people are.

The way to the hostel was longer than I expected but eventually I make my way there. The hostel is cool and there is a lot of social activity, but it's in the middle of nowhere. Which is a bit disappointing, as it means that I have to walk for over half an hour to find a place to get dinner.

I start the next day searching for the Seminyak beach, which ends up being another big disappointment, to start with, it was super hard to find, as a lot of the roads leading there where cut of by hotels, making them private roads, and once there, it was nothing special, a long beach just like Kuta beach, but with more trash spread all over the sand. After all these let downs I make the decision to leave Seminyak, I wasn't going to enjoy it here so I head back to Kuta, which has a better location to get around and is a bit cheaper.

Once I'm back in Kuta I decide to head towards the beach, and if the waves are nice maybe even rent a surfboard. And so I did, I spent the afternoon at the beach surfing and eating watermelon, and I have to say, it was awesome.

The day was quite relaxing, and to round it up I decide to go in search for the local food market (of which I had read about in the lonely planet). It is supposed to have plenty of local food at low prices. But what I found was not quite what I imagined. I arrived at a little square, yes, it had a few places with a variety of local food. But it was nothing like a market, it felt more like a little square with a bunch of tiny local restaurants ran by local families. Nothing big but they had good food.

The next morning was an early one. I had a lot planned for the day, so after a good breakfast I take a taxi and head towards Uluwatu, the most southern part of Bali. The drive takes about an hour and a half. And the first thing on my list is visiting the temple.
As I pay the entry fee and move to head towards the temple area I get called back, I need a scarf over my legs...Even though that I am wearing a sleeveless that barely covers my chest, I just need to wear a scarf over my legs...

The temple is at the most extreme part of the cliff

Anyway, with my new purple skirt I walk towards the temple's domain. The domain is massive, and has lots, lots of monkeys (I would even say to much). The temple is built at the edge of a big cliff, it offers some amazing views, buuut, you can't acces the temple, the closest that you can get is to a patio, which has another patio before the temple.
And back on the monkeys subject, not only here are to much of them, but they are also very aggressive: As I was walking around I got to see how a monkey stole the glasses of a Chinese tourist, and after stealing them he started twisting them with what seemed like the sole purpose of breaking them, the Chinese, hooping to get his glasses back, gives the monkey a bottle of water, his one reaches out for it, without dropping the glasses, and open the bottle of water to drink out of it.

View from the bar

After my visit to the temple I decide to head towards the beach, it's supposed to be an incredible surfing beach, if you can call it beach (it barely has sand, but has some amazing waves breaking on the reefs). But I find no taxis near the temple, so decide to walk for a bit. After the 30 minute walk I arrive at the beach, there are a bunch of restaurants build all the way upwards on the cliffs next to the beach. And every single one of them has an incredible view over the surfers and the reef.
I head for the highest bar, guessing it will have the best views, and I wasn't wrong. From up there I had some awesome views over the reef.

For dinner I decided to head to a well known restaurant in town with a few friends from the hostel. The sky garden is a all you can eat all you can drink for about 7€ (and full of backpackers in a party mood). And I made the huge mistake of easting too much and too fast, and give up after about an hour (and you had 4 hours).
So after a way to heavy meal I end up going to sleep as soon as I get back at the hostel.

What a way to end the last night, but it's probably for the best, as I have a plane to catch the next day, towards Australia.

Indonesia: Bali

Kuta & Ubud 

I arrive at the Ngurah Rai International Airport, in Bali, Kuta. It starts raining as soon as the plane lands, and to make things worse, the rain just intensifies as time goes by.
At the exit to the hall I get overwhelmed by the amount taxi drivers approaching me, they do seem kinder than the people in Thailand, but they feel way to persistent.

I eventually get to the hostel for what I think is a fair price, and guess what, the rain got worse. Because of the storm that is going on my only option is to wait in the hostel until everything clears out.
Around the afternoon the rain finally ceases and I have the chance to go and explore the little city.As I walk towards the beach I notice how not even the locals were prepared for such a heavy storm: the streets where flooded, the side-walks where slippery and the beach looked like a mess.
Because of the gray looking sky I decide to keep the walk short and look for a place to eat while I walk. I was expecting lots of street food or restaurants with local food, but to my disappointment that's not the case, the only local dish that I seem to find is Nasi Goren, which is just fried rice with crackers and a satay.

A local offering

My last objective before heading back to the hostel is finding a way to get to Ubud, and I booking a little shuttle which leaves around 11 a.m directly to Ubud: my first real destination.

As I walk towards the bus stop I notice something that I hadn't noticed yesterday: Even in a busy city, people make time for offerings and religious related things.

The bus leaves the station and I get a seat next to the window, I am well decided to keep an eye out, expecting to see some extensive rice fields, forests or fast paced rivers somewhere in the 2 hours drive between the two towns. But to my surprise, nothing changed, we followed the main road (which isn't even a highway, just a big road) and next to it, you can see stores, houses, big office buildings, everything but the open spaces that I was expecting. It all feels like one big city with a busy road between the two centres.

One of the Monkey forest's Temples

Anyway, I arrive at Ubud and drop my things off at the hostel. Ubud feels a lot more relaxed than Kuta, less busy and prettier, I have lunch and continue towards the Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary, which is a little forest full of various species of monkeys just at the edge of the Ubud main road.
It is considered sacred place for the townspeople and inside the forest you can find a couple of temples which are still in use.

In my search for dinner today I encounter a few groups of local kids all dressed up, making loud percussion noises, dancing and cheering. They go around places asking for donations while they show of their dragon costumes and try to give a nice little show. I am guessing that this is because of Chinese New year that was just a few days ago, but I am not absolutely sure.

The next day I am planning to visit the famous Balinese rice fields. They are in a little village called Tegalalang, about 10 km up north from Ubud, and of course, seeing the short distance I decide to rent a bicycle to go to the fields.
The journey is harder than I expected, because it is uphill all the way, and obviously I take a few roads that lead towards nowhere, making the trip even longer. On top of that, the sun just keeps on getting harsher.

On my way I do find lots of small, local rice fields which looked amazing, but are nothing compared to the impressive fields of Tegalalang.

The way back to Ubud is a lot easier, as it is downhill all the way. And once I'm  back in Ubud I start my search to find the famous Kopi Luwak coffee, and I have to say, I don't think it's all that special. Maybe it was just the place where I had it, or my taste buds not being developed enough, but it just tasted like a flat americano.

Before the sun starts setting I visit the Ubud palace.And as the sun sets locals start to sell tickets to the "exclusive" traditional dance show of which you have more than 4 in one single night. I don't think they understand the meaning of exclusive over here.

Forwards to dinner, because I still have trouble finding local dishes or restaurants that serve anything other than Nasi Goren.
I decide to just look for an appealing place instead of a local place, and end up having dinner in a Spanish tapas bar, the owner was from Barcelona and it felt really good having the option to get all the traditional Spanish dishes here in South East Asia. I had a bit of "ensaladilla rusa" and some "patatas bravas" It was glorious to get some real Spanish food after such a long time.

The next day is my last morning in Ubud, I visit the little market that's right next to the hostel, have something for breakfast and then just continue to the shuttle back to Kuta, from where I would go to Seminyak, a beach north of Kuta of which I heard lots of good things.