Let me start off by saying that it has taken me so long to get this post up because of Jet... wait for it...Lag. Bali had a 15 hour time difference. I had no problems adjusting to it once I got there, but coming back home has been really tough. I can't sleep at night and I fall asleep all over the place during the day. I heard it takes 1 day per hour to adjust back to your time zone once you get home. Needless to say it's been a pretty unproductive week.
EVA Airlines is the company I used to fly and it was awesome. I got a Hello Kitty Jet and was upgraded for both of my long 14 hour flights. I will definitely be flying with them next time I go back to Asia.
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| One of my upgrades included a seat with about 6 feet of leg room- A tall persons dream come true |
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| The Hello Kitty Jet had everything customized with the infamous Hello Kitty Face... Including the toilet paper |
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| ...and barf bags |
Ubud, Bali
25 hours later I made it to Ubud, Bali. I also like to call this city Yogi Heaven. There are yoga studios, health and juice bars, and massage studios for miles and miles (or should I say kilometers). Good thing I am here for a yoga retreat or this would be awkward. The streets are constantly packed with people on mopeds, dogs and an open monkey forest smack dab in the middle of the city just to add to the craziness.
There are about 10 people in this yoga retreat group hosted by Newton Campbell from Triad Yoga Studio in Newport Beach. We practice yoga at the hotel usually once a day and have a few excursions /tours planned for the couple of weeks we are here.
I have discovered I love Balinese food and all of the fresh juices soooo much. I cannot get enough of the fried noodles, currys and Jamu Juice (Tumeric, Pineapple, Ginger, and Lime). The shopping here is so incredibly cheap and you can usually bargain the prices down to about half of the asking price. I actually had to borrow Newtons extra suitcase to bring stuff home because I didn't have enough room in the one I brought. Massages range from $10-15 US dollars for an hour to hour and a half sessions. Facials are also around $10. Oh and the people here are so incredibly nice and patient. By patient I mean the streets can be a crowded disaster all day and you will maybe hear one person honk or yell. It was such a different experience for being in a busy city. Time is never rushed here.
ATTN: DONT TOUCH WILD DOGS. I learned a $500 dollar lesson very quickly... None of the dogs seemed aggressive, but I managed to get bit by one. I was walking behind one in the street trying to get around some construction. Since the streets are overwhelming to be in I was trying to get back onto the sidewalk as quickly as possible, but this dog kept stopping in front of me and looked like he wanted to dart in front of the cars a few times. Without thinking i started to shoo him towards the sidewalk area that he had access to and then lightly pushed him in that direction and he snapped at me and grabbed my fingers in between his teeth and I dragged them out. Now as much as this hurt it barely broke skin, but it broke enough and there was some blood. After consulting many people I decided it would be in my best interest to get the rabies vaccine since I had no idea if the dog was vaccinated or not. So in the period of a week I had 4 rabies shots in my arms thankfully and hopefully Rabies free. The doctor said it was more common for people to come in with Monkey bites than dog bites so I guess the dog bite was less traumatizing than a monkey bite could have been. The plus side to these shots is that they seemed to stop mosquito bites from happening, so if you do plan on getting bit by a wild dog and shot up with the rabies vaccine try to make it happen before you get a thousand bites on your legs :)
I will definitely be coming back to this island just to visit Ubud again. In all of my travels this year it was easily one of my top favorite cities.
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| My shared room at the Rama Phala Resort |
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| The resorts pool |
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All the girls practicing at our hotel in the back area- If pictures had sound you would be able to hear the soothing river or waterfall flowing in the background.
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One of the many giant bugs I encountered
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| Patricia at the entrance of Yoga Barn |
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| Entrance to one of the studios |
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| Reception Area |
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| A studio |
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| Yoga Barn Garden Cafe meal with My favorite "Jamu juice" (turmeric, pineapple, ginger and lime) |
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Patricia, Barb, and Fran- getting ready to take a restorative class
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Monkey Forest- Ubud
Anyone who knows me knows how much I loooove bananas. So what better way to spend a day than with smart little animals who swing around on trees and eat bananas all day. This forest was amazing. It was a huge park and had a brick wall around it so humans could not get in without paying the entrance fee, but monkeys were free to leave if they wished. My favorite rule listed was do not look them in the eye. It was creepy to think about, but if you did accidentally look them in the eye you would quickly find out why you shouldn't. They can be aggressive if food or objects are involved especially if you want to add some stares... it will fuel the fire; they might just jump on you. There are a handful of park rangers staggered around the park who supposedly have many of the monkeys if not all of them trained to listen to them in case a tourist gets attacked or has something important stolen that they need back. I was able to "safely" have one jump on my shoulders with the park rangers guidance. Fran went back to this forest quite a few times on the retreat and came back with all kinds of funny stories. She said she saw a guy teasing a monkey with a banana because he was trying to get the perfect selfie and teased him one too many times so the monkey just bit him in the head! sounds harsh, but it seemed like he deserved it. It's easy to stay safe in the forest, just DON'T TEASE THEM. She said they are also very frightened when they see someone in a police uniform and its because if they get out of hand in the city streets the officers will strike them. They are very intelligent animals (Maybe we should nominate one of them for president of the United States?).
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| Fran with her monkey friend |
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| Tourist hanging with a monkey |
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| Me getting jumped on by a huge monkey |
Tour # 1
- Sahadewa Performance: If you ever get the chance to see a traditional Balinese Performance I highly recommend it. The characters, dancing and music are all so strange, but very cool to see.
- Goa Gajah Temple
- Kintamani Batur Lake and Volcano
- Coffee Plantation: we got to coffee and tea taste as well as try the famous Balinese coffee made from Luwak animal droppings
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| A dancer from the Balinese performance |
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| A Barong (mythological animal) which represents a good spirit |
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| You must cover your legs at temples so usually they will provide these sarong types of things at the entrances |
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| This little boy in his superman shirt was selling refreshments at the top of some steep steps |
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| Kintamani Batur Lake and Volcano lookout from our restaurant at lunch |
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| A fruit stand off the side of the road |
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| A chicken farm :( |
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| Entrance to the coffee plantation |
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| A Luwak- coffee producers use the coffee berries that they have digested to make their famous Luwak Coffee |
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| Luwak coffee being brewed at our table overlooking the forest- it was so beautiful |
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| Coffee Plantation on site cafe |
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| Coffee and Tea Tasting |
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| A lookout of some rice paddies |
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| More of the lookout |
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| Bali photo booth we stumbled across on the hike down from the lookout point above. The signs were all adjustable. |
Keramas Beach
This is a naturally black sand (and extremely sparkly) beach. It's such a shame that photos could not capture the sparkle that radiated out from the sand. It was so incredibly beautiful we went back a second time. And just a side note: I have been to a few black sand beaches in my lifetime, but none were ever as radiant as this one was.
The first trip a few of us took a taxi from Ubud to this beach and it was about a 1.5 hour drive and cost $14 each way. Split between 4 people this was nothing. We hung out at a restaurant and ate food with an amazing view of the water. We went in the water and swam for a bit since the it was so warm and inviting. A guy may have tried to rob us, but we fooled him pretending we didn't know English and Gianne and Anya spoke Russian to each other to try to throw him off so he eventually left us alone.
The second trip some of us decided we wanted to surf. We rented a few boards and were quickly told about the shallow reef. I have never surfed over a reef so I knew I would be too scared to try to catch any waves with reef 4 feet under me to break my fall. Patricia hadn't surfed before and got warned by a lifeguard not to go out because of how dangerous it could be. Brandon was the only one who actually caught some waves. It was fun just to paddle out since I hadn't been out in months. The rest of the day we spent at a "beach club", ordered some overpriced drinks and fed some wild dogs. Jennifer tried to order fish to feed to one dog who kept hanging out with us and was told not to feed him by the waiter, but she did anyway because he was so cute... It was hilarious.
Black sand mask?
The gang
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| The Beach Club |
Tour # 2
- Oura Taman Ayun Temple
- Pura Ulan Danu Temple
- Eka Karya Botanic Garden
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| Kattut, our tour guide- Always laughing |
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| Oura Taman Ayun Temple |
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| A small cobra snake wolfing down a frog |
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| Pura Ulan Danu Temple |
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| Brandon, Newton and I sporting our new hats- thanks Newton! |
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| The Pura Ulan Danu Temple is on the 50,000 Rupiah Bank Note |
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| Baby deer! |
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| My roomate, Jennifer and I |
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| Huge Street market |
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| The corn skin is this color here.... strange |
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| Newton doing what he does best at the botanical garden |
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| Bieber Fever Forever (Newtons hat) |
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| The botanical garden |
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I just have to get pictures of stores that have funny translations
Lembogan Island
This island was a 45 minute-bumpy-crazy-fun boat ride away from Kuta, Bali. We basically had 24 hours here... I would say it was a little bit bigger than the size of Catalina. It was so beautiful and seemed to have a lot more to do than Catalina.
We found a cool beach area next to our hotel and had some drinks on the sand. A few of us rented paddle boards just before sunset and ended up getting pulled way out by a current. Luckily we were saved by the paddle board owners in their boat. I was really surprised this happened since I do go out in the ocean a lot back home when I surf and nothing like that had ever happened to me. Lesson learned: keep a close eye out for currents while in open water.
The island did not have many cars on it... The transportation was mopeds or a few pick-up trucks. The entire group rented a couple of gold carts so we got to drive around all morning in those and explore the island. It was a ton of fun and those things could really pick up speed!
The cutest dog ever with sand on his little nose!
Anya and Newton waiting in the Taxi
Our Beach hangout
Gianne enjoying her Martini
Dinner in the sand with some of the gang
Someone couldn't hang at dinner time
Interesting graveyard- all of the tombs had umbrellas over them
View from a higher part of the island
Newton doing a backbendon the famous yellow bridge
Dancers pose
Back Bend
A lookout
Newton attracted all kinds of people with his Jamaican dreaded beanie
Lunch time view
Infinity pool at our lunch spot
I loved the table here
Some more chicken for lunch
Spent the rest of our afternoon on Hammocks beachside
Tour # 3
- Tegenungan Waterfall: a short 30 min walk down to very misty falls and if you can make it back up the steps you can treat yourself to Gelato :)
- Tanah Lot Temple: On the Indian Ocean
- Padang Padang Beach: Overcrowded but beautiful beach... You have to go through a monkey forest to get to it
- Uluwatu Temple: On the ocean and is absolutely gorgeous at sunset
Durian- the smelliest fruit that I ever did smell (and by smelliest I mean reeks! Gross!)
Newton, Katut and I
Tegenungan Waterfall
Anytime, Anywhere
Finally remembered to bring my GoPro!
Tanah Lot Temple
This little girl was so brave!!
Cheryl facing her worst fears with style
Tanah Lot
Padang Padang Beach
Barb and I at Uluwatu Temple
The group at Uluwatu Temple for sunset
Patricia, Newton and I in our proper temple attire
The view from the top- it reminded me of Big Sur a little bit
Sanur, Bali
Anya, Patricia and I stayed a little bit longer on the island than the group. We decided to move locations to be closer to the beach and the airport so we picked Sanur. This was a cute little town with a select few restaurants and hotels. It seemed to serve as a harbor for boats that go on scuba diving trips. Patricia and I were only there a night so we tried to make the most of our 24 hours there.
Our hotel room at the Artotel (Art-Hotel) was so beautiful
Our infinity pool
Gasoline used for MoPeds- it's more commonly seen in Absolut Vodka bottles around the island, but i forgot to snap a picture of that
The outside of our hotel
Dining Area
There were all kinds of art structures like these throughout the hotel
A whale mural that I really liked
Patricia and I on our balcony
Trying to get crazy with the GoPro
If you get sick of Balinese food there is always an Italian option around- I always got a chili-lime sauce when I got italian and it was so tasty!
Stretching it out on the rooftop sheltered from the rain
Since I wasn't allowed to drink alcohol because of my Rabies vaccine I usually had a banana instead of a drink
Some more art work in the area- I really enjoyed this design
My business class meal on the ride home with the Hello Kitty Jet once again. Airplane food is so much better when paired with Hello Kitty Utensils and outside of the US.
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