Jimbaran

Our last 4 days of the trip - it's been amazing and we're a bit sad that it is coming to an end. We knew the trip was about over, so the goal was to do some surfing (Justin), shopping (Stacie) and enjoy some beach time (both).



Here is a little place called Dreamland beach.

Here Justin is at Dreamland, checking out the waves. It was a bit too blown out and choppy to surf this day.

One of the highlights of our trip was sunset dinners on the beach at Jimbaran - a 5 min walk from our hotel. It was absolutely stunning, and the fish was fresh off the boat. Wow.

The sunsets here aren't too shabby.

Here's Kuta beach, where Justin was doing his surfing. We'd heard that this area was kind of nuts, but we actually enjoyed it. The shopping up the road in Seminyak was great, with stylish boutiques and Indonesian prices. Justin spent a couple hours each day here riding the waves. At sunset it gets absolutely packed with folks wishing the sun good travels as it sets into the sea.

It's been a great trip, and now we hop on a plane for the long journey home.

Paradise found

After the arts, crafts, dances and hills of Ubud we decided to head to quiet East Bali to enjoy the ocean. We landed in a town called Candi Dasa. We had dinner in a warung (small restaurant) right on the ocean - it was quite nice and the food was good.


Our hotel was out of this world! Candi Dasa itself didn't offer all that much, but our hotel - wow. We had a private villa with a thatched roof, a beautiful hardwood deck, and a koi pond. After dark it was like being out in the jungle - frogs croaking, crickets, a huge lizard in the pond, and other wildlife everywhere. We enjoyed just hanging out on the deck all eveing with nothing but a mosquito coil to keep us company.

We were here for 3 days, and each day headed about 20 minutes up the road to a tiny port village called Padang Bai. It had a great feel to it, and several amazing beaches just a 5 minute walk from town. The pic above is Blue Lagoon and we just absolutely loved it - enough to spend 2 full days here. It's a very small beach with a couple of thatched restaurants up behind it. The water was a cooling 86 degrees. The snorkeling was mind blowing - amazing coral, fish everywhere, sting rays, eels, and it got good just 50 feet from shore.

No, Justin isn't dead, just floating around while he puts his mask and fins on. He spent a LOT of time in the water here. :)

Sunset in Padang Bai, with all the local fishing boats on shore.

If we were to do it again we'd definitely stay right in Padang Bai. So far this is our favorite place in Bali.

After a couple days playing in the water we headed back towards the main tourist area near the airport for our final 4 days. We hired a driver and had him go the long way - up a steep, tiny, pot holed road up in the mountains. The views were stunning. The rice paddies were carved out of really steep hills, it looked like you'd need mountaineering skills to farm some of the places. The picture above is looking way down towards Padang Bai.

More rice paddies, they're literally everywhere.

This is near Sideman, up in the mountains. Another little farming town. There are 4 million people in Bali, but they're scattered across the island in village after village. It's sometimes hard to tell where one village ends and one begins. You're never very far from people here, even out in the hills.

A little more Ubud

We've spent a week total in Ubud, and have had a chance to enjoy some cooler mountain weather as well as a few other tastey morsels...


Our second cooking class of the trip gave instruction for making balinese food for special occassions including weddings. The food we made was the best food we've eaten in Bali. As it turns out, you don't travel to Bali for the food. The balinese get by on rice, beans, and a little bit of vegetable. The food in Ubud was several notches better than other parts of Bali with outstanding ambience.



A popular way to spend an evening is to see a traditional balinese dance and music performance. Zoom in and check out the dancer's eye - they do some weird things with their eyes during these dances. It's a little disturbing.

Justin took a bike tour through the rural areas of Bali and took a few pictures of the local feel. Every little village has 3 temples - and it's only 1km or so between villages.

This is the kind of thing people do for a living. Woven bamboo for ceiling and wall coverings. Lots of manual labor, and almost everything made has to do with tourism.

Terraced ride paddies everywhere - the countryside is really beautiful.

Justin's bike tour ended just as a deluge hit. More rice paddies from the restaurant at the end of the bike tour in absolutely torrential rain. Just witnessing a tropical rainstorm is great entertainment - as long as you're not caught out in it!

Still in Bali

Well we're still in Bali. Here's the quick version of the update, and hopefully we can add a post or two with some details and lots of pictures we we find an internet cafe with a good conection. Here at the hotel it is really s l o w.

We finished off a great week in the hills and mountains of Ubud and then headed to Candi Dasa. Once there we found our hotel was absolutely stunning, but the town wasn't too great. Good news, though, the little port town of Padang Bai was just a 20 minute ($1) Bemo ride away, and it was our favorite place in Bali so far. It has a great vibe, super friendly people, amazing beaches, and some fantastic snorkeling.

As I (Justin) write this, we're back in the main tourist area near Jimbaron beach. I'm looking foward to some surfing - but you'll have to wait a while to hear about that as our posting lags our travels by three or four days.

More to come...

PS - I just read in the Seattletimes.com about all the snow. Alpental sounds like a really great reason to head back to the cold Pacific NW. Pow, baby, bring on the pow!

Ooooo - Ubud

We're now up in the hills of central Bali in the town of Ubud, which is known for its art, culture and dance. We really like it up here, it is just enough cooler and cloudier to make walking around pleasant.

The surroundings are stunning and lush. Above is the hotel we stayed a few nights at - for pretty cheap, too. The Bali style architecture out here is really great, and people are always smiling and incredibly friendly.



We hired a driver again (that's what you do here), and headed up towards the Agung Batur volcano. On the way up we stopped at one of big, important temples in Bali. It was very, very busy since we were in the midst of the Galongan celebration.

In Bali there's pretty much some kind of celebration every day - all with a procession, ceremony at the temple, and drums, kids and flowers. Right when we got to Bali there was the full moon - that was followed by the 10 days of Galungan, right after that is Kerungun, then the dark (new) moon celebration, etc.


We arrived at the Tirta Empul (Holy Spring) temple and there were thousands of locals, and a handful of tourists. They are incredibly welcoming in Bali, and any time a celebration is going on you're more than welcome to come and watch. The only requirement is that you be "clean" and wear the appropriate clothes - a sarong and a slangdang (sash) with a modest shirt.

The temple is centered around a spring that is fed by the crater lake, Danau Batur, which we were up on our way to see. The waters here bring good luck, as well as being the site of the important temple.


Local men head up to the temple wearing their ceremonial white shirts and sarongs.


All these folks were making offerings and prayers before taking a dunk into the holy pool. The drums were constantly playing in the background at all temples and whenever there was a ceremonial procession through town (yup, every day).


Here Justin is at a restaurant literally perched on the crater wall of Agung Batur with the lake Danau Batur in the background. It had erupted two decades ago and lava covered a town - we felt right at home.


On the way down we stopped at some incredibly stunning rice terraces. Wow. We're still in Ubud for a little longer, and then we'll head to the East part of the island for a few days.

Uluwatu

We arrived in Bali to sunshine, heat and humidity. It is a beautiful place and we're eager to start on the second major leg of our trip. We'll be here about 2 1/2 weeks, and then we'll be returning to Seattle.

Our first destination in Bali was the town of Sanur. The areas was actually a bit odd for us, the first time in our trip we didn't get extremely lucky in our choice of locations. The hotel was amazing, but we were the odd ducks in Sanur. Everyone else, and I really do mean everyone, was a senior citizen from Holland or Belgium. Not too many locals around, either.

Not all was lost, though. The surrounding areas were pretty darn amazing. We took day trips to Uluwatu and the main town of Denpasar.

Here is the grounds of the Musuem Bali in Denpasar, the main urban area of Bali. Not many tourists, and the architecture in Bali is just stunning. They keep referring to "Bali style" for their architecture and art. They really do have a unique and exceptionally good style.

We hired a driver and took a day trip up to the Bukit Peninsula and the Uluwatu area on one of the following days. Wow - we'll be back here to stay for a few days at the end of our trip. Justin was slobbering a bit when he saw the waves.

Here we're up on a 50 meter high limestone cliff overlooking the Suluban surf break. Look how clear the water is!


The local surfers have what is, once again, called "Bali style", influenced by the traditional Bali dances and ceremonies.



Looking back from Uluwatu temple along the limestone cliffs. Uluwatu is one of the 4 most important temples to the Balinese.

Part of the temple was only for locals during religious ceremonies, and the rest of it was open for tourists.

We watched a Kacek (c's are pronounced ch in Indonesia) dance. Stunning a capella performance.

Even though it was a tourist performance, it was impressive, and we were right on the edge of the cliff.


The fire part of the Kacek fire dance.

$ingapore

Singapore is a very modern asian city, 85 km from the equator, with lots of rules and order. We felt quite at home in many ways, which was a bit refreshing after our Vietnam adventures. Cars stopped at every red light, and pedestrians crossed when you'd expect. The water was safe to drink. We even took advantage of the opportunity to use ice cubes and enjoy an iced latte at a nearby Starbucks. Who knew how good that could taste.

Above is a view from our hotel window, and the funny looking canopy toward the bottom is a covered area full of restaurants, shops, cafes, and bars. Remember to click on any picture to enlarge.

Singapore is quite possibly the most orderly city in the world. Quite a contrast from the rest of SE Asia. Here is a shot of Singapore's Chinatown... yes, it seems like every city has a Chinatown but never have we seen one quite so well organized. Daryl, you would be thrilled.

Very, very modern city full of cars, tall buildings and lots of technology. The city is also impeccably clean and incredibly safe. Chewing gum is banned, and there are strict fines for any type of littering or disorderly conduct. Good behavior from everyone, please.

Our hotel was in a lovely area of town, right on a river, surrounded by restaurants and cafes. It was a huge area filled with people walking around, and it was largely covered to keep folks dry during the monsoon like downpours. In the evenings, it was full of people enjoying the cooler temperatures (including us).

Ah, Singapore. This is a town where Justin and Stacie learned the value of the USD. Or rather, lack there of. After downing a $6 cup of coffee (drip coffee) and and a beer for $12.99, we realized it was best that we would not be staying long in Singapore.

Clark Quay, the area under the strange looking canpoies was one of the main night spots for restaurants. It was a great place to hang out and spend the evening. Every kind of theme you could imagine in the restaurants. Some very cool, some a little weird. The picture above is a bar called Clinic - you sit in wheelchairs and drink from IV drips or siringes. Odd, and a little creepy really. We don't want to do that until we have to!

We didn't have long to spend in Singapore, so we had to soak it up quickly. And soak it up we did. If you ever look at the forcast for Singapore, it always seems to say 86 degrees and thunderstorms. We have had few occassions to see it rain so hard, anywhere. Not all day, just in the evening, but it was amazing how such a large city could just keep on going with such limited visibilty. Our plane actually landed in Singapore in one of these storms- not my favorite thing.

We had quite a fabulous couple of days in this city, and then had to head out of town while we still had some travelers checks left.

Hoi An- People, Places and Things

Hoi An is another town situated on a river. Very different than our last stop, Hoi An centers around a market and the trading of goods. The town is built of centuries old merchant houses that were spared during the past couple of wars. The owners live in the upstairs and run shops and restaurants down below. They are quite amazing, really.

It seems Hoi An has been "discovered" by tourists, and may soon loose it's individual identity. We noticed new construction that had come up even since our guide book was published.

However, we have been able to enjoy the lovely charms Hoi An has to offer, just a few blocks outside of the main area of town. We decided to summarize it with people, places and things.

Enjoy.

People

The best part of Hoi An was the people. It is such a strong community. Everyone seemed to know each other, and seemed to help each other out. They are sort a fun, relaxed group of folks- the kind of people you hope to always have in your life.

They walk their lost grandparents home....

This lovely, toothless women was generous enough to sell us some overpriced fruit at the beach.

They give friends rides on their bikes...

They hang with their girlfriends...

They're not afraid to kick up their feet once in awhile...

The women work very hard in Vietnam. The men...

Again with the men...

This over-worked woman has fallen asleep in her own produce stall.

Generally, friendly people all around.

They even wear crazy outfits in public sometimes.

The little kids are in fact, the cutest.