Every restaurant has features two traditional Balinese desserts: fruit with Balinese honey, and warm mashed bananas drizzled in palm sugar, cinnamon, and coconut.
Always double check starting times of booked excursions.
Monkeys don't come out when it's raining.
You'll never have trouble finding transport.
Bali-appropriate showers are a must: you're hot when you first get in so initially the water should be cold. Once your body temperature returns to a somewhat normal level, you can turn up the heat and enjoy a regular hot shower. But make sure you go back to cold water for at least the last minute or you'll be sweating in the humidity before you can fully dry off.
Hiking up a volcano for 2 hours to watch the sunrise Christmas morning won't replace being with family but comes pretty darn close.
One way streets for cars aren't necessarily one way streets for motorbikes.
Always order dessert.
Don't pay as much for 5 pieces of fruit as you do a massage.
Internet speed sucks during convenient hours but is always great at 2am.
11:30am isn't too early for a Bintang.
When it rains, every tourist thinks a massage is a great idea.
Luwak coffee is made with beans a luwak has pooped. But it still tastes great.
Sometimes a bike's right hand break stops the front wheel.
Always bring a rain jacket.
If your 5:00 bus isn't there at 5:30, it's okay, it's probably still coming.
Every shop and door smells like incense.
You can use Nick's Pension's amazing swimming pool without being a guest.
Kafe recycles plastic water bottles but laughs at you when you pull 7 out of your bag.
Showing posts with label biking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label biking. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Friday, December 23, 2011
Revived!
Welcome to Bali!!!
I decided to revive my blog! If only for Bali, hopefully it’ll save a few experiences and memories for me. But internet at our guesthouse is kind of slow, so I probably won't upload many pictures here.
So today is December 24. It’s a 13 hour difference to the east coast and 15 hours to the west coast. I’ll start from the beginning because it took me two days to get here. But I guess the real story starts months ago when Elena tried to leave Australia to spend a few months in New Zealand and was told she couldn’t return to Australia in December, where her and I had planned to spend the holiday break together and she already had her return ticket booked to. So in a mad rush to buy a non-Australian ticket before her plane departed, she chose Bali!
So I booked a flight and, four days ago, left freezing Maine for hot-and-humid Bali! But it wasn’t quite that simple. Door to door, it took more than 48 hours to get here. The trip started with a very yummy #roommatelunch at Flatbreads in Portland followed by a trip to Whole Foods for some gelato and shopping. Then the flying started. Portland → 1-hour plane ride to JFK → 9 hour layover → 13-hour plane ride to Doha, Qatar → 9-hour layover → 7-hour flight to Singapore → 1-hour layover → 3-hour flight to Denpasar, Bali! I met Elena at the guesthouse at about 9pm that night. Too tired to eat dinner, we were both asleep by 10.
The next day we were up early. We walked down the road to a cute café and had breakfast. Toast and eggs for me, banana “faffles” for Elena. It was a kind of breakfast twist on a banana and honey panini. And we both had some of the best juice I’ve ever tasted: banana and mango.
We’re staying in the village Ubud, which is beautiful. We’re staying on the main street, but behind the shops that line the sidewalks so we can’t hear the busy traffic. We have a queen sized bed for the two of us, a flush toilet, hot and cold water in our showers, and a porch where tea is delivered at 6am everyday. The street itself is one way for cars but two ways for mopeds and bikes. The sidewalks are elevated about a foot and a half with big dips for every driveway. There are tons of massage shops and spas advertising stone massages and reflexology. The stores that sell clothes have everything ranging from dresses made from Balinese fabric to yoga wear. There are also beautiful shops that sell every kind of artwork imaginable: kids’ toys, modern paintings, traditional stone sculptures, kites, glass dishes, and jewelry. There are also way more organic and natural shops that I anticipated that sell soaps, herbal remedies, other natural remedies, incense, and clothes. There are stands everywhere advertising for tour companies. And men sit on the sides of the street and offer taxi rides to every passing foreigner.
That afternoon I headed to a spa for a traditional Balinese massage. It was really great and less than $10. That night we had dinner at Kafe and went to bed early. Kafe has really latched onto the Bali Go Green initiative. They don’t serve plastic straws unless you request one, they collect plastic water bottles from customers and people on the street to recycle them, and all of their food is organic and most is local.
Yesterday, we took a bike tour of “The Real Bali” with a green Balinese company. They picked us up at 7:30am along with 9 other people and we drove first to a restaurant overlooking an active volcano and Bali’s largest lake, Danau Batur. In addition to banana pancakes, amazing fruit, local coffee, and rice, we had chocolate rice pudding with coconut milk, which was surprisingly delicious and has since been spotted on many dessert menus.
Then we drove to a green coffee company where we were shown over 20 species of plants and learned a little about Bali’s coffee industry. We tried the Luwak coffee., which I’m pretty sure only comes from Indonesia. The Luwak is a really cute raccoon-like animal that eats coffee beans, ferments them in its stomach, and poops them out. Then the beans are roasted and brewed for coffee! It was yummy but not all that strong. They also gave us 3 types of tea and 3 other types of coffee to try, which were all delicious. I hadn’t realized there was a difference between male and female coffee beans, but apparently male beans are stronger and therefore more popular but female beans are needed to grow next year’s crop. They also gave us a few types of fresh fruit to try, and that’s the best mango I’ve ever tasted. So sweet and juicy.
After that stop, we went to a traditional Balinese compound. I’m not sure I’ll ever be comfortable walking into someone else’s house without knowing them or talking to them although they walk by, but there were a few other tours in the same compound. We learned about the plastic plaques put in front of the compound that list the families in each compound and the number of males and females in each compound. In Balinese culture, the wife follows her husband to live with his family. So if a couple has three boys and three girls (as one of the families in the compound we visited did) and all six of their kids are married, the three girls will move out and the three boys will bring their own families. So the compounds must grow super fast. I think they just build new houses to accommodate the new families. And each family always has their own kitchen.
Every compound also has its own temple. We didn’t go in, but the roofs that stuck above the fence were really ornate. There wasn’t too much color, although it looked like the stone had been painted at one point. Every village also has at least three temples. One at the north (which is always to the mountain in the middle of the island) to signify birth and creation, one in the middle to signify life, and one at the south end of the village (always nearer to the sea) to signify death and the end of life. Houses and beds always face to the north or west but the dead are carried to the cemetery with their heads pointing toward the south or east.
One room had huge sticker letters on it that said: MY ROOM. My favorite part was seeing the barbells outside someone’s room. There was a metal pole with cement weights on either side, with various sized weights nearby. There were pigs that our guide referred to as traditional ATMs. There were roosters in individual cages that are used for cockfighting. They’re left by themselves in the sun everyday to increase their anger.
We were told about cremation rituals and all of the ceremonies a baby goes through when they’re born. I think there are 4 ceremonies and they aren’t allowed to touch the ground for the first 6 months of life. When a girl gets her first period or a boy’s voice changes, they go through a ceremony where six of their teeth are filed. They’re given some numbing herbs, but the thought is that six negative characteristics (including alcoholism, envy, and anger) can be avoided by filing the teeth, although the individual can still possess any of these characteristics and it is up to him or her to avoid them.
Finally we got to the starting point where we all chose a bike and a helmet. Our guide told us to make sure the gears worked. And to make sure we knew which break, front of back, went with which hand. As he warned, these bikes are held to international standards so sometimes the front brake is on the left, sometimes it’s on the right. And we were off. It was about 24k downhill bike ride and took close to 3 hours. By downhill, they actually meant you won’t have to pedal. But it certainly was beautiful.
About an hour in, it started to rain and then downpour. I literally couldn’t see in front of me and had to hope the swells of water weren’t covering potholes. Luckily, no one in our group fell. At some points the water would cover our feet as we rode. When mopeds or cars passed our whole bodies were splashed. There were small rapids at some points that were caused by water rushing from the homes on the side.
Sometimes we’d ride through villages with homes on either side of the road. The fences were beautiful with ornate roofs and temples poking up. There was one staircase that was unreal. It first came down facing the street and then broke into two that went down parallel to the street. Between the two newer staircases was an alcove with a stone statue. The water rushed down the stairs and was beyond words.
At other times we rode through rice paddies that were flooded from the rain. You can tell where one family’s land ends and another begins by the small temples on the borders.
At the halfway point, we stopped under a huge tree for bananas. A young girl from the house across the road ran out in the rain with the bananas and a bag for our trash. I think her job was to wait for every passing tour and bring them their snack of fruit.
Once we made it to our end point, a van picked us up and drove us 8km uphill to our lunch spot. Overlooking more flooded rice paddies, we had a buffet style feast.
Although we’d planned to go to Monkey Forest after, the rain kept the monkeys out of sight. So we came back to our homestay but the lock to our room was broken. We walked around town where I got hugely ripped off buying fruit. We decided to find a spa with reflexology to pass the time and get out of the rain, but apparently every other tourist had the same idea because every spa was full. So we walked around in the rain, which was warm and not uncomfortable at all for 2 hours before heading back to our room and showering to warm up.
For dinner, we ate at another café where we sat on mats and pillows on raised platforms with very low tables instead of tables with chairs.
So far Bali has been enchanting. People are very friendly, mostly the man who runs our guesthouse who has helped us booked our tours, lent us books on Bali, and given us advice on what to do. The food is delicious and the streets are really fun to walk around on. Today we’re going to take a Balinese cooking course from 9:30am-4pm. Tomorrow we figured we’d do something special for Christmas, so we’re doing a sunrise trek up a volcano, probably followed with some afternoon facials. For the next two days we’ll probably visit a beach and do some shopping in town. Then on the 28th, I leave for Malawi and Elena heads off to Thailand!
More updates to come….
I decided to revive my blog! If only for Bali, hopefully it’ll save a few experiences and memories for me. But internet at our guesthouse is kind of slow, so I probably won't upload many pictures here.
So today is December 24. It’s a 13 hour difference to the east coast and 15 hours to the west coast. I’ll start from the beginning because it took me two days to get here. But I guess the real story starts months ago when Elena tried to leave Australia to spend a few months in New Zealand and was told she couldn’t return to Australia in December, where her and I had planned to spend the holiday break together and she already had her return ticket booked to. So in a mad rush to buy a non-Australian ticket before her plane departed, she chose Bali!
So I booked a flight and, four days ago, left freezing Maine for hot-and-humid Bali! But it wasn’t quite that simple. Door to door, it took more than 48 hours to get here. The trip started with a very yummy #roommatelunch at Flatbreads in Portland followed by a trip to Whole Foods for some gelato and shopping. Then the flying started. Portland → 1-hour plane ride to JFK → 9 hour layover → 13-hour plane ride to Doha, Qatar → 9-hour layover → 7-hour flight to Singapore → 1-hour layover → 3-hour flight to Denpasar, Bali! I met Elena at the guesthouse at about 9pm that night. Too tired to eat dinner, we were both asleep by 10.
The next day we were up early. We walked down the road to a cute café and had breakfast. Toast and eggs for me, banana “faffles” for Elena. It was a kind of breakfast twist on a banana and honey panini. And we both had some of the best juice I’ve ever tasted: banana and mango.
We’re staying in the village Ubud, which is beautiful. We’re staying on the main street, but behind the shops that line the sidewalks so we can’t hear the busy traffic. We have a queen sized bed for the two of us, a flush toilet, hot and cold water in our showers, and a porch where tea is delivered at 6am everyday. The street itself is one way for cars but two ways for mopeds and bikes. The sidewalks are elevated about a foot and a half with big dips for every driveway. There are tons of massage shops and spas advertising stone massages and reflexology. The stores that sell clothes have everything ranging from dresses made from Balinese fabric to yoga wear. There are also beautiful shops that sell every kind of artwork imaginable: kids’ toys, modern paintings, traditional stone sculptures, kites, glass dishes, and jewelry. There are also way more organic and natural shops that I anticipated that sell soaps, herbal remedies, other natural remedies, incense, and clothes. There are stands everywhere advertising for tour companies. And men sit on the sides of the street and offer taxi rides to every passing foreigner.
That afternoon I headed to a spa for a traditional Balinese massage. It was really great and less than $10. That night we had dinner at Kafe and went to bed early. Kafe has really latched onto the Bali Go Green initiative. They don’t serve plastic straws unless you request one, they collect plastic water bottles from customers and people on the street to recycle them, and all of their food is organic and most is local.
Yesterday, we took a bike tour of “The Real Bali” with a green Balinese company. They picked us up at 7:30am along with 9 other people and we drove first to a restaurant overlooking an active volcano and Bali’s largest lake, Danau Batur. In addition to banana pancakes, amazing fruit, local coffee, and rice, we had chocolate rice pudding with coconut milk, which was surprisingly delicious and has since been spotted on many dessert menus.
Then we drove to a green coffee company where we were shown over 20 species of plants and learned a little about Bali’s coffee industry. We tried the Luwak coffee., which I’m pretty sure only comes from Indonesia. The Luwak is a really cute raccoon-like animal that eats coffee beans, ferments them in its stomach, and poops them out. Then the beans are roasted and brewed for coffee! It was yummy but not all that strong. They also gave us 3 types of tea and 3 other types of coffee to try, which were all delicious. I hadn’t realized there was a difference between male and female coffee beans, but apparently male beans are stronger and therefore more popular but female beans are needed to grow next year’s crop. They also gave us a few types of fresh fruit to try, and that’s the best mango I’ve ever tasted. So sweet and juicy.
After that stop, we went to a traditional Balinese compound. I’m not sure I’ll ever be comfortable walking into someone else’s house without knowing them or talking to them although they walk by, but there were a few other tours in the same compound. We learned about the plastic plaques put in front of the compound that list the families in each compound and the number of males and females in each compound. In Balinese culture, the wife follows her husband to live with his family. So if a couple has three boys and three girls (as one of the families in the compound we visited did) and all six of their kids are married, the three girls will move out and the three boys will bring their own families. So the compounds must grow super fast. I think they just build new houses to accommodate the new families. And each family always has their own kitchen.
Every compound also has its own temple. We didn’t go in, but the roofs that stuck above the fence were really ornate. There wasn’t too much color, although it looked like the stone had been painted at one point. Every village also has at least three temples. One at the north (which is always to the mountain in the middle of the island) to signify birth and creation, one in the middle to signify life, and one at the south end of the village (always nearer to the sea) to signify death and the end of life. Houses and beds always face to the north or west but the dead are carried to the cemetery with their heads pointing toward the south or east.
One room had huge sticker letters on it that said: MY ROOM. My favorite part was seeing the barbells outside someone’s room. There was a metal pole with cement weights on either side, with various sized weights nearby. There were pigs that our guide referred to as traditional ATMs. There were roosters in individual cages that are used for cockfighting. They’re left by themselves in the sun everyday to increase their anger.
We were told about cremation rituals and all of the ceremonies a baby goes through when they’re born. I think there are 4 ceremonies and they aren’t allowed to touch the ground for the first 6 months of life. When a girl gets her first period or a boy’s voice changes, they go through a ceremony where six of their teeth are filed. They’re given some numbing herbs, but the thought is that six negative characteristics (including alcoholism, envy, and anger) can be avoided by filing the teeth, although the individual can still possess any of these characteristics and it is up to him or her to avoid them.
Finally we got to the starting point where we all chose a bike and a helmet. Our guide told us to make sure the gears worked. And to make sure we knew which break, front of back, went with which hand. As he warned, these bikes are held to international standards so sometimes the front brake is on the left, sometimes it’s on the right. And we were off. It was about 24k downhill bike ride and took close to 3 hours. By downhill, they actually meant you won’t have to pedal. But it certainly was beautiful.
About an hour in, it started to rain and then downpour. I literally couldn’t see in front of me and had to hope the swells of water weren’t covering potholes. Luckily, no one in our group fell. At some points the water would cover our feet as we rode. When mopeds or cars passed our whole bodies were splashed. There were small rapids at some points that were caused by water rushing from the homes on the side.
Sometimes we’d ride through villages with homes on either side of the road. The fences were beautiful with ornate roofs and temples poking up. There was one staircase that was unreal. It first came down facing the street and then broke into two that went down parallel to the street. Between the two newer staircases was an alcove with a stone statue. The water rushed down the stairs and was beyond words.
At other times we rode through rice paddies that were flooded from the rain. You can tell where one family’s land ends and another begins by the small temples on the borders.
At the halfway point, we stopped under a huge tree for bananas. A young girl from the house across the road ran out in the rain with the bananas and a bag for our trash. I think her job was to wait for every passing tour and bring them their snack of fruit.
Once we made it to our end point, a van picked us up and drove us 8km uphill to our lunch spot. Overlooking more flooded rice paddies, we had a buffet style feast.
Although we’d planned to go to Monkey Forest after, the rain kept the monkeys out of sight. So we came back to our homestay but the lock to our room was broken. We walked around town where I got hugely ripped off buying fruit. We decided to find a spa with reflexology to pass the time and get out of the rain, but apparently every other tourist had the same idea because every spa was full. So we walked around in the rain, which was warm and not uncomfortable at all for 2 hours before heading back to our room and showering to warm up.
For dinner, we ate at another café where we sat on mats and pillows on raised platforms with very low tables instead of tables with chairs.
So far Bali has been enchanting. People are very friendly, mostly the man who runs our guesthouse who has helped us booked our tours, lent us books on Bali, and given us advice on what to do. The food is delicious and the streets are really fun to walk around on. Today we’re going to take a Balinese cooking course from 9:30am-4pm. Tomorrow we figured we’d do something special for Christmas, so we’re doing a sunrise trek up a volcano, probably followed with some afternoon facials. For the next two days we’ll probably visit a beach and do some shopping in town. Then on the 28th, I leave for Malawi and Elena heads off to Thailand!
More updates to come….
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