After an exciting 5 days in Borneo, we arrived in Bali on July 7. Cristina’s amazing driver, Kumang, picked us up and took us to Villa Zen in Canggu, so the kids could recover from the virus they picked up in Borneo.
Our first day, we had a yummy breakfast at Spoon, and then Kumang took us for a tour of southern Bali. Our first stop, was a temple on the Southern Coast called Uluwatu (“ulu” means top and “watu” means stone or rock), one of 6 key spiritual temples in Bali.
In addition to having hundreds of monkeys, which are believed to guard the temple of bad influences.
it had a spectacular view of the Indian ocean from the cliff top.
After the temple, we climbed through a cool natural rock cave down some stairs
to Padang Padang Beach to swim and frolic in the waves
Then we drove up to the top of the cliffs to watch the amazing surfers below
Before heading for a yummy fish lunch at Blue Marlin Cafe on Jimbaran Bay
After a pretty bad, very slow lunch with a gorgeous view, we drove over to Tanah Lot Temple, an ancient Hindu shrine which sits on top of a rock that juts out into the crashing surf.
We arrived just in time to watch the sunset, as the path out to the temple disappeared beneath the waves.
In addition to the Tanah lot main temple, there were lots of smaller shrines, lined with powerful stone figures.
We were amazed by how the waves carved the stone, which held one of the shrines.
And by the millions of bats that swarmed out of the rock cliff pathway that we were standing on as soon as the sun set.
The next day, Komang couldn’t drive us, so his brother who didn’t speak any English, was our designated driver for the day.
Our first stop was tasty, informative, and a little bizarre – Subak Bali Agro Coffee Break – where we all learned about Kopi Luwak (sometimes called “catpoocino” because the coffee is made from the coffee beans that the luwak poops out)!
Aliya even held the luwak for a quick moment
before we all sat down for a tasting of over 12 different types of teas and coffees.
We tried Lewak Coffee (which Ben thought was good to try once, when in Bali!), Bali coffee (which really wasn’t good to try anywhere), Coconut coffee (which was quite tasty), Vanilla coffee, Ginger coffee, Ginseng Coffee (which was supposed to have all sorts of healing properties), Mangosteen Tea, Ginger Tea (which Raquel really liked), Lemon tea, Lemon Grass Tea, Herbal Tea, and Rosella Tea.
Asher and Aliya preferred the slightly purple, sweetened Rosella Tea
which had a unique effect on the kids!
After being taken to the store to buy some lewak coffee for Kyle and some Rosella tea for ourselves, we wandered back through pathway of cocao and coffee bean trees back to the van to drive off to our next destination.
After a long and windy drive, we arrived at Pura Ulun Danu on Beratan Lake, in Bedugal (central Bali). Ulun Danu is a Hindu Temple built in the 17th century to worship Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva, as well as the lake goddess, Dewi Danu.
Ben loved all the offerings
After visiting the floating pagodas on the lake, Asher and I found a very cool sculpture garden, with a series of frogs in various poses.
We had one last temple to see before we were all “Templed Out”!
The details of the stone engravings were amazing!
Fortunately, we had just one last stop at the picturesque, tiered rice patty Tegallalang outside of Ubud
The haze of burning foliage, wall of brown and green layers, old ladies begging for money, and steep steps down set a picturesque view for an end of day adventure.
The next day, we were happy to ditch the long car rides and enjoy all the nooks and crannies of Ubud. We loved searching for fun pants and cool Bali bags in the Ubud markets.
We peeked in lanes to admire the locals preparing the decorations for a local Hindu celebration.
Even the stutues were decorated
We were so hot and tired that the cool fresh coconut tasted delicious!
The engraved entrances down the many Ubud lanes were truly amazing!
Ben loved the local ladies sorting the flowers.
After all that shopping, it was time for some suckling pig at Ibu Oka Warung, a strange all pig restaurant down an obscure lane behind a temple.
But Raquel’s favorite restaurant was where we had dinner, Ibu Rai, just down the street from our hotel. I think the aesthetics of the restaurant were as good as the food!
In the afternoon, we took a wander through the Monkey Forest. The funniest sight was the monkey who thought the stone monkey was real: he was talking to it, yelling at it, stroking it, and hugging it!
After hanging with these monkeys, we decided to take a hike along the Campuhan ridge on the outskirts of Ubud.
Then it was finally time to go back and relax at our hotel, Kajane Mua (Hogianyar). Ben loved how they lined the stairs with flowers up to the rooms.
‘But the kids loved playing with the floaties in the pool with the bar in the middle.
We were hemming and hawing over weather we should take the trek out to Gili T. The ride over to Gili T was the roughest, bounciest, multi hour boat ride.
The waters were so rough that the boat was unable to land at the other islands and went straight to Gili T. The water was so rough near the dock that the boat had to just pull straight onto the sandy beach and we had to climb over the boat while clinging to the windows and each other not to fall in.
Once we had our feet on land, it was time to climb into our mule drawn taxi for a convoluted ride to our hotel.
Aliya loved this Keep Calm sign!
The beaches were beautiful but the rough waters made it too difficult for the kids to go swimming.
And you can just imagine what kind of travelers Gili T attracts!
This picture captures the spirit of Gili T’s lade back nature.
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And of course, Raquel is always happy when she can drink a coconut on the beach!
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After 2 days in Gili T, we finally made it back to Bali, after our fast ferry was cancelled, we were dumped onto Lombok, had to find a taxi which took us to a super slow cramped, hot, long car ferry back to Bali where we had to find some random driver who would drive us another couple of hours back to Ubud. What was supposed to just take a couple of hours took us about 10+ hours!
But we were very happy once we made it to our oasis of a hotel – Sabandari – on the outskirts of Ubud. The only strange part was when Ben was freaked out around 3 am when a frog jumped into the trash can!
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Bye, Bye, Bali!
