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.