Hello again!
This is my current view from my spot on the beach on Gili Trawangan whilst I'm typing this post!
It's been a while since I last posted, it turns out that it's actually not that easy to fit blogging time in between all of the things I want to blog about...first world problems eh?!
Day 17! Thursday 24th July 2014
We arrived at Uluwatu temple just before the sunset - perfect timing for somebody as snap happy as me! We paid our entrance fee and donned our purple sarongs so we could enter the temple grounds!
Jack thought he was rocking his "dress" (as he kept calling it)...I'm not so sure personally!!!
The temple itself is pretty stunning, set into the side of the cliff, overlooking the Indian Ocean!
There were also some pretty entertaining grey monkeys hanging around at the temple, this cheeky little fella decided to initiate a little bit of a face off as I tried to pose with him!
I thought the monkeys and I were getting on quite well...it wasn't until I was leaving the temple that things started to get a little hairy!! Two rather large monkeys decided to make it their mission to steal my flip flop off of my foot...they now have an authentic monkey bite mark on them to mark the occasion...I'm just glad it was the flip flop that suffered the puncture, not my skin!! Those two were obviously the trouble makers of the pack - the others posed beautifully for me!
When I managed to shake off the monkeys we decided to attempt the walk to the Uluwatu beach front, much to the disappointment of the waiting taxi drivers!! We actually got there without a hitch - it seems we'd ended up in the only place in Bali with helpful road signs like "surfer beach". I also managed to capture this lovely shot as we walked past some local farming land!
We ended up at Single Fin, highly recommended by the Lonely Planet guide as it happens! I imagine it would've been an amazing sunset spot, overlooking the sea but by the time we got there it was dark and lit by little tea lights.
I had a lovely mojito and a great pizza, just what I needed after my ordeal with the monkeys!
Day 18! Friday 25th July 2014
On Friday morning we checked out of our fancy hotel in Uluwatu and ordered a taxi to Ubud, the next stop on our tour of Bali! We did investigate the possibility of getting a bus or some other form of public transport but the hotel staff discouraged us - ah well, glamorous backpacking it is! There really should be a word for what we've ended up doing...like glamping but for backpacking... glampacking?!
It was a fairly terrifying journey, no offence Bali, but you really need to sort out your roads. I'm not even convinced they have driving tests or road traffic laws here... everyone just goes wherever the hell they like! Ah well, we made it to Dono Guest House, our accommodation in Ubud, in one piece so I can't complain!
We checked in with the adorable little lady that runs the guest house. She showed us to our room and brought some Balinese coffee over to us on our little porch.
Feeling very chuffed with our accommodation, which came to about £8 each a night, we headed off to explore Ubud!
Starting to feel our tummies rumbling, we headed to Warung Schnitzel (on Lonely Planet's advice - it really is a cracking book) to have an early dinner. It was super tasty, as was the freshly squeezed juice!
I had the chicken schnitzel,
I had to really, you don't go to a restaurant that is named after a particular food and not try it...well, Jack did actually but his choice paid off! A really tasty chicken curry!
Bellies satisfied we headed back to the hotel to get planning the next part of the trip - we are such organised travellers!
Day 19! Saturday 26th July 2014
After a good night's sleep and no experience of bed bugs (mentioned in one of the trip advisor reviews of the hotel), I was the first one to take the plunge and test out the shower. We were told the hotel had hot water showers so I ran the red rimmed shower tap hopefully. For ten minutes. Nothing...why have a hot tap and no hot water?! Seriously?! Poor Jack was woken up by me shrieking as the cold water hit my spine in the bathroom.
Shower ordeal over, he was awoken by yet another shriek. There was a HUGE spider on the wall in the bathroom. I'm not exaggerating, it was massive. So big that I actually wouldn't let Jack kill it because I felt like it was more the size of an animal than an insect. He tried to shoo it away with his flipflop and then realised it had quite the capacity for jumping between walls...
We soon retreated and closed the spider in the bathroom in favour of letting the 4ft10 little lady that runs the hotel deal with it. She came along with a smile on her face and a broom in her hand and the spider was no more. Sorted.
Spider dealt with, we sat down for breakfast and were served a bowl of fresh fruit, coffee and something rather interesting...
What I thought was two slices of buttered toast happened to be a rather unfortunate combination of grated cheese and chocolate sprinkles. Mmmmmm...not! Apparently Indonesians like this bizarre combo but I'm definitely not sold!!
We left the hotel and conducted our own mini tour of Ubud. We went to Ubud Palace...
To a temple with, as described by Lonely Planet, "a very fine gate"...
Along Jalan Kajeng, which has loads of inscription type things along the paving slabs...
And ended up at the temple that overlooks the lotus pond...
Which also happened to be the location of Starbucks - pretty cool to have a coffee overlooking the lotus pond!
The seating was pretty cool too!
After Starbucks we headed to the Sacred Monkey Forest and saw some incredibly cute baby monkeys and even some monkeys doing breast stroke in the central fountain!
We also saw a man with a monkey just chilling on his head. He was making people laugh, gesturing to his wife and the monkey, saying "meet my wife and my son, he has his mother's eyes"!!
It was all going brilliantly until I saw a monkey bite a lady's back, completely unprovoked! After that I was very ready to get out of there!
We stopped at Maha for some lunch - it was a cute little set up with a resident white bunny rabbit! And then wandered around the market stalls, picking up a few bits and bobs to take back home!
We then went for drinks at Bollero which was beautifully decorated with flowers. We played each other at Gin Rummy, betting with our small change and I wrote some postcards to send home.
We then went back to the hotel to freshen up and drop off our bags before heading out for tapas at Cafe Havana!
The bill was brought out it an old cigar box - thought that was a pretty nice touch!
Day 20! Sunday 27th July 2014
On Sunday we went on a downhill cycle tour of Ubud that we'd booked ourselves onto earlier in the week.
We got picked up along with two Canadian girls, two Australian ladies and an Irish guy. We were driven to a beautiful view of some rice terraces not far from Central Ubud...
Then we were taken to a coffee and tea plantation to learn about how they grow and make their tea and coffee in Indonesia. We got to try some samples too, they were all quite lovely actually!
Then came breakfast...well, sort of...they served up Nasi Goreng...this is becoming a bit of a ritual I think!! We ate at a cliff side restaurant with a lovely view of Mount Batur and the lake below...
We then actually got on our bikes and started the ride, which involved a LOT of breaking!!
It was a very steep downhill ride most of the way, never have I had to use my breaks so much on a bike!! It also didn't help that the gears were dodgy but thankfully I didn't need them most of the time whilst I coasted down the hills!
We cycled through little villages where everyone waved and said hello (not
gonna lie, I felt like a bit of a celebrity!!), past rice fields, banana plantations, wood carving workshops and family compounds with cute puppies!
gonna lie, I felt like a bit of a celebrity!!), past rice fields, banana plantations, wood carving workshops and family compounds with cute puppies!
We ended up in a restaurant and were served chicken sate for lunch. We were also treated to a traditional Indonesian dance, performed by two local little girls, one of which was wearing traditional dress that had angry birds embroidered on it!
After the bike ride we got dropped off at the hotel and made plans to have drinks at Oops! Bar with the Canadian girls from the trip later on.
But first we had dinner at Waroeng Bernadette, a lovely Javanese restaurant-come-7boutique that sold all sorts of weird and wonderful lamps made from recycled materials!
Day 21! Monday 28th July 2014
Monday was an extremely chilled out day and started with a much better breakfast! No more cheese and chocolate toast! On Monday morning, fried egg sandwiches were served, a far better choice if you ask me!
We left the hotel after breakfast and went to sit in the "Starbucks with a view" whilst we booked up accommodation for the rest of our trip - see, I told you we were organised!!
We then had some lunch at Nomad (I had Soto Ayam - a lovely spicy chicken soup), where they serve drinks in the weirdest glasses, before heading to a yoga class at Yoga Barn!
We did the 1.5 hour "introduction to yoga" session with Eka which was really good fun and definitely helped stretch out my aches after the bike ride the day before!
After yoga I went to drop off all of my laundry from the trip so far - I only paid 20,000 IDR for the lot, that's the equivalent of 1 Great British Pound - madness!
Having saved myself some cash we headed for two for one mojitos at Toro Sushi whilst waiting to head to Fair Warung Bale for our dinner reservation!
Fare Warung Bale does some amazing food and is highly recommended by all who have dined there. There is also the extra bonus that the proceeds from the restaurant go towards a healthcare foundation that provides medical care for those who need it most but cannot afford it!
The food was seriously yummy and we also had an expected dinner guest - a massive gecko on the roof!
Day 22! Tuesday 29th July 2014
On Tuesday morning we headed to Bumi Bali for our Balinese cooking course! It started by heading to Ubud Central Market to check out the fruit, vegetables and spices, which was really interesting!
We then headed back to the restaurant to make a start on food preparations. We made Bumbu Bali, a spicy sauce used in many Balinese dishes (we served it with rice and vegetables).
Then we made Opor Ayam, a Balinese chicken curry!
Also, Balinese Sate Lilit - a satay dish made from ground and seasoned pork, which is the twisted around a stick (or some lemongrass) before grilling.
Finally, we made banana fritters with palm syrup for dessert!
So the cooking course was pretty good and I now know how to rustle up some pretty tasty Balinese food - watch out Master Chef!
We also met some lovely people, two of which we made arrangements to go for drinks with later that evening!
As if all that cooking didn't provide us with enough food to be getting on with, later that day we headed to Warung Siam on the recommendation of our new Canadian friends. The pad thai was pretty amazing but it still didn't steal the place that Jitlada's (a favourite little Thai restaurant of mine back home) pad thai has in my heart!!
We met a super nice New Yorker over dinner, for the purpose of this post he'll be called crazy doctor Bill. He seemed to have been everywhere and started telling us his life story within minutes of meeting him. He talked almost as much as I do (if that's even feasible) and his stories actually contained some great life and travel advice, thanks crazy doctor Bill!
After dinner we met up with the two girls from the cooking course who also happened to be from England. We had a great time doing a bit of a mini bar crawl, which included getting some pretty amazing frozen blueberry daquiris at a bar (which I can't for the life of me remember the name of!).
Day 23! Wednesday 30th July 2014
I was up bright and early on Wednesday morning, reading to be picked up at 06:30 to go for my "bathe and breakfast with the elephants" experience at the Elephant Safari Park and Lodge in Taro, just outside of Ubud.
I've always dreamed of doing something like this, so excitement levels were high, even at 6:30am! It turns out that elephants are very early risers!
Unfortunately most of the pictures I have of the day are on my camera so I can't include them in this post as I am currently "sans laptop"! I have tried to take a picture of the camera screen with my phone to give you an idea though, so excuse the dodgy quality pictures!!
My experience started with me being given a hose and a brush to wash down my elephant, Gigi! She was loving it - so friendly and trying to drink the water straight from the hose!
After giving Gigi a bath, I got to ride an elephant (Nopi) bareback in the lake. It was so much fun being in there with them as they splashed around - they really do love the water!! Again, pictures are on my camera still - starting to see the necessity of a wifi enabled camera now! Darn technology!
After my ride in the water, I got showered and had my included "American breakfast" which was actually rather nice!
Then I was ready for my ride around the park on another elephant, this one was called Togor, a male, with his mahout, Wayan! All of the elephants at this park have been rescued from Sumatra and have a dedicated keeper! Togor had been with the same mahout for 16 years!
The ride took me around the jungle-like areas of the park and through the lake again, but it was a much drier experience that time as I was perched upon a little bench!
After my elephant ride, I got to feed some of the baby elephants and basically spent the rest of the morning playing with them - it was such a lovely experience!
We then got to see the elephant show which really did showcase how intelligent these gentle giants are! They did a mix of painting, basket ball, football, addition, hoola hooping and more - it was short but amazing!
After the show I got dropped back at my hotel and wandered around Ubud for a while, just enjoying the scenery! I did a bit of shopping (you know, just to practice my haggling skills, duh!) and then met Jack for dinner at Dewa Warung and some seriously tasty macaroons from Caramel, a patisserie on Jalan Hanoman!
We then went to bed at about 9pm in preparation for our 1am wakeup call to go climb Mount Batur, an active volcano!
Day 24! Thursday 31st July 2014
We got picked up outside our hotel at 2am - far too early!! The roads were dark and eerily quiet for a busy place like Ubud, so we made it to the foot of the volcano fairly quickly.
When we arrived at the starting point, we met our guide, Kadek, who turned out to be a complete babe!
We started our climb at about 3:30am and I'm not gonna lie, I found it very tough! There were small rocks all over the path that made it very slippy and difficult to get your footing. There were also very steep rocks that were quite difficult to climb past in order to continue the hike. Kadek was a life saver, he literally held my hand for most of the walk up the mountain bless him!
We stopped half way up so Kadek could pray at the small temple and give his offering. He very kindly asked me to take part and I helped him light the incense and provided torch light whilst he set up his offering!
I won't beat about the bush, hiking is not my thing. The only reason I signed up for that climb is a) because I knew Jack wanted to do it, and b) because there was supposed to be a kick ass sunrise to be seen over Bali from the top of the mountain!
No such luck - it was too bloody cloudy and absolutely freezing due to us being at the top of a 1717m volcano at 6am! Who would've thought it could be that cold in Bali of all places?! I combatted the cold by impersonating the hungry caterpillar...
Sunrise missed, we took our compulsory "we made it to the top" pictures and headed back down the mountain! I can't complain too much though as we did see some amazing stars on the way up, even a few shooting ones which was pretty awesome!
The journey back down the mountain was actually far more enjoyable even though it was still tricky navigating down the steep slope of the mountain! We came across a part of the rock face that was seeping volcanic steam out of it. It was like an outdoor steam room - I was seriously impressed!!
Naturally by the time we'd got to the bottom of the mountain the sky had cleared up, just our luck, but it did make for a nice view back on part of the beast of nature we'd just climbed!
We could also faintly see the outline of Mount Agung - Bali's highest mountain! Look reallyyyyy carefully at the centre of the bottom part of the photograph!
We arrived at the bottom of Mount Batur at around 9am and headed back to Ubud for some chicken curry at the "Melting Wok", which was seriously tasty and well deserved after our early morning trek!
After lunch it was time for Karsa Spa, a beautiful place located amidst some rice fields! I had booked my treatments in advance so was very much looking forward to my 2.5 hours of blissful relaxation!
I had an amazing 1 hour Balinese massage in a beautiful outdoor room, complete with petal bath and shower! My back felt seriously amazing after and I couldn't wait for the rest of my treatments!
Next up was my chakra realignment (part of the package deal). I had no idea what to expect and I'm still none the wiser as I fell asleep in the treatment seconds after the therapist placed some crystals on my body. Is that what's supposed to happen?! Whatever she did, I felt pretty amazing and chilled after the treatment...but then that might've just been because I'd had a good nap...who knows?!
I then had a manicure and pedicure and had my fingernails and toenails painted bright red! (Please do excuse my weird toes!)
Treatments over and feeling very chilled out, I went to find Jack to start the walk back to Ubud over the Campuhan Ridge.
^^There's me by the pond, being all zen-like with my balanced chi...
We also walked past another temple that we didn't know existed! I obviously had to take a picture of it whilst Jack "simply had to" take a picture of me being a massive tourist!
We also crossed over the Campuhan bridge and the sacred river - a very picturesque walk set up by the spa, thanks Karsa! (And we also stopped by a corner shop for ice cream!)
We finally ended up back at the hotel and took some much needed showers before heading our for our last dinner in Ubud.
We went to Naughty Nuri's (as recommended by Alison - thanks!), a Warung that is world famous for it's BBQ ribs, burgers and martins!
It's so hard to get a table there, there's no queuing system so you literally have to poach tables like you do parking spaces in a full car park! Madness!
The food was seriously good though - we split a burger and a rack of ribs with a side of potato wedges! I managed to take a picture of my half of the burger but unfortunately we'd already demolished the ribs before we even thought about photographing them! Oops!!
After dinner, we headed back to the hotel and packed up our bags ready to set sail on the next part of our adventure!
Day 25! Friday 1st August 2014
So that concludes our time in Ubud - we had a fab time but were excited to be picked up by the coach to Padang Bai harbour at 7:00am on Friday morning, ready to catch our boat to Gili Trawangan! (Which is spectacularly beautiful by the way!)
Expect more on Gili Trawangan in the next post!
Thanks for reading!!
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