Beautiful Bali

Saturday June 1 2013   11:30pm

Admittedly the reason why I wanted to to go to Bali was because Elizabeth Gilbert wrote such lovely things about it in her book Eat, Pray, Love.  Apparently tourism here skyrocketed after the movie came out.  

We are having a wonderful time!  

We arrived in an area on the coast called Kuda on Wednesday May 29 and met J and E at the hotel.  The hotel was funny all decorated kind of cheesy with surf boards everywhere but the rooms were nice with the softest pillows ever!  

We checked out the beach the second day.  The guys rented surf boards for an hour and E and I shopped a little and then laid on the beach a bit.  The current was super strong and really close to the shore.  It may be good for surfing but it was a quite rough for swimming.  

N and I really underestimated the power of the sun.  In our excitement about the ocean some how we forgot to put on sunscreen (like idiots) and we both just fried.  I am still super burned three tubes of aloe vera layer.  

Kuda didn't really blow any of us away.  The food was relatively unimpressive (despite the fact that J and E really do their research to find the best eats - great travel companions!),  the shopping is mostly tacky knick-knacks and since we were burned so bad we didn't want to go back to the beach.  So the next day we had a great breakfast, took a quick dip in the pool and moved out.  We took a 2 hr cab ride inland to Ubud where J and E had been before and just loved it.  

I love Ubud!  I want to take all my friends and my family here!  It's so great! Not has AMAZING food and shopping!  And just tons of cool things to do!  You could just wander around for hours...and we have.  

J and E had read about this place called Chez Monique Jewelry that teaches you to make custom silver jewelry for a good price.  It was quite difficult to find it but after a long hunt we finally found it.  J wanted to make a ring that looked like his wedding band (which is beveled) to wear when doing labourer swimming in the ocean etc.  his end result looks impressively similar to the original.  I wasn't if I would bother making something but kind of wanted to try it out.  

Then I had the idea to make a magnet with the islands of Indonesia (N and I collect a magnet from every place visit).  Well I think I get this lovely over ambition from my mother and about half way through the task I realized I'd bit off a bit more than I could chew.  The crazy thing took me over three hours start to finish.  I was however extremely pleased with me final result and it was a super cool experience.  The owner is just the nicest, most helpful guy!  He was such a great teacher.  He showed you how to do it and then just let you figure it out, make mistakes and snap saw blades.  I absolutely loved it and would highly recommend it.  He kept joking that I should stay and he'd give me a job.  And I had so much fun I kept being temped to stay and take him up on it!  

  

J and E took us to a very good very neat little restaurant that they had tried out when they were first here.  The shop has only three tables.  It's just one guy who runs the place and you have to book a reservation the da before but the food is amazing.  

Today we rented scooter.  N had never driven one before so I was a bit nervous says the passenger but very impressed with how quickly figured it out. I tried it out to for bit.  It was super fun but I couldn't do it with N on the back because he was too big for me to balance the bike with my short legs.  We drove up to Bumbuaare Volcano.  

We ate lunch at a cute little place overlooking the rice terraces.  I somehow managed to order good Feduccini Alfredo!  

We had kind of an amusing/irritating run in with the corrupt Indonesian Police.  When we rented the scooters the guys said nothing about licence or anything.  He told us where the registration was "in case we were stopped by the police" but nothing more.  Now it seems super dumb to drive without a licence but everything in these places is so chill and low key we just didn't think of it, even though N does have an international drivers licence.  Anyways so we got stopped by the cops and oh we're in trouble because we have no licence so one cop take us aside and after quite a bit of annoying discussion tells us our only option is to pay a $25 fine, the receipt from which will act as an Indonesian drivers licence until we leave the country or for a "special price today" we could pay him now and just go and see the volcano.  Nice that a bribe in Bali is only $5 so it was tempting but as we thought we'd likely rent scooters again N and I opted for the fine/licence.  I will never get used to police corruption.  

The volcano was stunning!  It was about a 2 hr to get there and overall just a super fun trip!  It looked like it was going to pour and the drive was a bit tiring so we didn't want to hike all the way up and you have to pay a guide to go up at all so we just stuck with the view from below but it was very impressive.  (I don't think the photos really captured it.)

We came back and ordered this absolutely amazing wood oven pizza that we stumbled upon a few days ago.  Then we went for "the best ice cream in the world," as N puts it.  And finished off the evening with lattes in a little second floor lounge cafe with lay down pillows and funky art.  

J and E leave tomorrow to meet up with family Vietnam and we will likely stay another day or head over to the tiny neighbouring Gilli Islands.  We plan to be in Indonesia for two more weeks.