Tracy Carolyn Photography

We’ve spent the last eight weeks in blissful Bali, and now it’s time to move on.

I don’t regret for a minute staying in Bali for two months rather than one – it was exactly what we needed.  There is so much to love about the landscape, the culture and the cuisine here.  We have every intention of returning to this paradise in the future, but Bali is fairly difficult (and expensive) to reach from the US.  In all reality, it might be a while before we make it back.  But know this: we will be back.  A place like this is too good to visit just once.

I do wish we had a few more days – three more to be exact.  Nyepi, the Balinese Hindu version of New Year’s is celebrated March 11-12th, and we’re missing what appears to be an interesting celebration.  On the night before Nyepi, everyone collects in the streets, plays lots of music and parades around ogoh ogohs, which are large constructions of monsters intended to rile up the evil spirits.  But starting at 6am on the day of Nyepi, the island goes quiet – no work, no travel, no electricity.  Even the international airport closes (think about it – that’s a big deal.)  Many people fast and meditate on the day, and there are police stationed outside to make sure no one is out on the streets disrupting the peace.  Even tourists are required to stay in their hotels, though they are allowed to use electricity and internet.  I believe the idea is to draw the attention of evil spirits to Bali overnight, and then when they arrive the next morning to find the island quiet and still, the spirits will believe that it has been abandoned.  They will then leave Bali alone for the next year.  I’ve seen several ogoh ogoh’s being constructed in our neighborhood and they look pretty cool – I wish we were going to be around to see them paraded in the streets.  But alas, our visa runs out on March 8th, and we’ve extended our stay as long as the Balinese government will allow.  So off we go.

For the next three weeks we’ll be traveling through Singapore, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand.  It may be a little while before I get a chance to blog anything, but I’ll be back soon with reports from Southeast Asia.

John has gotten on board with Balinese clothing.  In fact, I dare say he loves it.  Not since Peru has he stocked up on so much local fashion.  While the items he nabbed in Peru were meant to keep him warm in the freezing temperatures, the clothes in Bali serve the opposite purpose – they are lightweight and comfortable to wear in the tropical heat.

He’s bought a number of clothing items while we’ve been in Ubud, some of which will be staying on as regulars in his travel wardrobe.  I did veto one or two items that he purchased (namely a linen shirt with a bright colored pattern I found to be horrific), but overall I think he looks good in tropical wear.  I made him model a few favorites for photos.

Left:  A blue silk sarong with red sash, which is required wear for entering temples here.  John likes to wear this one around our house.  A lot.

Center:  The tourist favorite Bintang Beer t-shirt.  Not traditional Balinese, but, you know, local.

Right:  White linen shirt with purple linen cropped fold-over-and-tie pants (Bali’s version of Thai fisherman pants.)  The added bonus for these pants is that they don’t have to be long enough for his tall guy legs.

Seeing as lightweight clothing will surely still be helpful for our next few months in Southeast Asia, I’ve also bought a thing or two here in Bali.  I have my own linen pants and a silk dress similar in pattern to John’s sarong (though it’s a different color), and I got a cheap pink cotton sarong that’s not as fancy as the silk ones.  Don’t expect to see any photos of my stuff, though – I don’t find modeling as much fun as John does.  I’m more of a behind the lens kinda girl.  But I’m pretty sure you knew that already.

Where We’ve Been

Ubud, Bali.

The Highs

• Successfully extending our tourist visa so we could enjoy a second month in beautiful Bali.
• Living with nature.  Our mostly outdoor home is a veritable ecosystem in itself, occupied by dragonflies, geckos, lizards, snakes, cats, birds, bats, butterflies, frogs, three distinct types of ants, and two humans who foolishly walk around as though they own the place.
• Taking a day trip to enjoy the more well known side of Bali – the pristine beaches.  Though we’re not beach bums, it was nice to swim in the ocean for a change.
• Hosting Charles and Amy, the couple we befriended in New Zealand when we were passing through Auckland.  It’s good to see familiar faces around the world.

The Lows

• Making my eyes cross from excessive travel planning.  On the plus side, I do have our plans sorted out pretty much through late May, but it took several hours of researching visa requirements and cross referencing flight prices to get there.
• Frequently smelling durian.  The smell is pungent, and once you can identify the smell it seems like it’s everywhere.  Ick.

Things I’ve Learned

Don’t cheap out when you’re getting a massage.  I went to a place earlier this week where the woman was literally texting with one hand while rubbing oil on me with the other.  I learned my lesson – even in Bali $6 might be too cheap for a massage.  Best to “splurge” on the $12 variety.

In Central and South America, it’s offensive for people from the US to call themselves Americans. (Everyone in North, South and Central America is an American.  It would be like the French deciding only they could be called Europeans.)  But around here, saying you are from the US is apparently very strange and confusing.   Its a weird quirk, but we’re slowly re-learning to call ourselves Americans again (at least while we’re in Asia.)

What’s Up Next

In March we’ll be in Singapore, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand.

We have houseguests in Bali!

Amy and Charles, a lovely Kiwi couple who hosted us when we Couchsurfed in Auckland, departed on their own Around the World trip in January.  Though they weren’t planning to visit Bali on their travels, our offer to host them in our villa in Ubud was too good for them to pass up.  They came down from Malaysia about a week ago and have been hanging out with us since.

A few days ago we all decided to hire a car and driver for the day to do some touring around the island.  Our main goal was to see Mt Batur volcano, but the driver suggested a few additional places to visit on our tour.  Figuring we’d make the most of our day, we agreed to his suggestions.  The first stop for the day was the lovely waterfall above.

We then headed to Goa Gajah, or the Elephant Cave Temple.  The mouth of the cave is ornately carved, and inside are a few small shrines and small spaces where people come to meditate.

The temple also has a number of fountains and fish ponds, though they aren’t very large.  The larger fish actually have to swim sideways to keep immersed in the shallow water.There are several massive trees around the temple.  They are wrapped in the red, white and black checked cloth that symbolizes the three main Hindu gods – Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver, and Shiva the destroyer.  The root systems that support these massive trees are impressively large.
Next we stopped at Pura Tirta Empul, the sacred water temple.This was probably the most beautiful temple we have visited so far.
This temple is quite ornately decorated compared to other temples we have seen.Water bubbles up through a spring in the ground into this large pool.  You can see the grey sand bubbling up beneath the surface as the water rises.  Locals believe the water coming up from the spring is holy.This holy water then flows from the main pool out of fountains into a lower pool, where people pray to the gods.  Here they bathe in the water to rid themselves of bad dreams or bring good luck into their lives.After the temples, we stopped at a coffee and cocoa farm, where they also grow spices such as cinnamon, cloves, ginger, vanilla, and ginseng.I have seen loads of coffee growing, and pretty much know the process from start to finish (thanks to my brother in law and our time in Nicaragua.)  However, this is probably the most low tech roasting process I’ve seen yet – just a woman and a pan over a low flame.The most prized product from this area is kopi luwak, which is known for being the world’s most expensive coffee.  The process for making it relies on the luwak (which is an animal sort of like a cat) who eats the coffee cherries and then excretes out the coffee beans.  The beans are then roasted and ground like regular coffee, but sold at a premium price.  We saw some of the animals in sad looking cages, knocked out asleep from the heat.  They were quite cute, and I felt terrible for them because every guide that walked past them felt the need to rattle the cage and throw rocks at them to wake them up for tourists.

From everything I’ve read, kopi luwak is not really that good and is actually expensive because it is produced in a novel way rather than because it is actually more delicious.  After seeing the sad luwaks, I didn’t really want to contribute to the system, anyway, so we decided to skip the expensive tasting of kopi luwak.  Instead we enjoyed our free samples of things like coconut coffee, red rice tea, ginseng coffee and lemongrass tea.With a caffeine buzz going strong, we stopped at a roadside fruit stand for a much needed pre-lunch snack…This dragon fruit was delicious.Finally we arrived at the crater near Mt. Batur volcano.  Unfortunately, the clouds had rolled in, making the view much less interesting than I had hoped.  Supposedly you can see the whole island from this vantage point, but we didn’t have a good day for the view.Our last stop was at the viewpoint for some famous rice terraces.  They were gorgeous, but by this point the four of us were dehydrated and a bit tired of sightseeing.  If we’d had a bit more oomph in us maybe we would have gone for a walk through the rice fields, but instead we just stared out at the view from afar.

It’s amazing how tiring a day of sightseeing can be.  (I know, you feel so sorry for me, don’t you.)  The four of us crashed as soon as we got back to the house.  Satisfied that we’d seen enough sites for a little while, we’ve been lounging in our pool and relaxing for the last few days.  With only ten days left until we leave Bali and go back into travel mode, John and I are enjoying taking it slow for just a bit longer.

Living in Ubud, surrounded by rice fields and distant volcanoes, has fooled me into forgetting we live on an island.  It seemed to me that after a month in Bali we ought to finally visit the beach.  So we did.

Bali is perhaps best known for it’s party beaches in the south, but there are also lovely, more isolated beaches to the east.  We chose to avoid the Australian partygoers and instead  visit Padang Bai, a small beach town where most people catch ferries to remote islands

We whizzed through the gorgeous scenery and bustling traffic on our motorbike, made a quick stop to check out another famous temple along the way, and in a little over 90 minutes, we were enjoying a meal oceanfront.

The Blue Lagoon beach in Padang Bai is public, and two restaurants make a tidy business renting out lounge chairs and snorkel equipment.  Slathered  in SPF 50 we ventured into the water to snorkel, pleasantly surprised by the brilliant variations of fish just below the surface.  I did my best to “be with the fish.”

Our initial plan had been to spend the night here and visit another beach in the morning, but after looking at a few rooms we realized that our home in Ubud is far better than any beach resort could be.  So when we were finished with the ocean, we went home and had a swim in our pool.

It was a quick beach trip, to be sure, but that’s how we like it.  Short, sweet, and sunburn free.