Welcome to Padang Bai

Beautiful Bloo Lagoon

Today began at 11am, with Ketut's yummy pancake and honey breakfast. We then go to Padang Bai Cafe in town where Nanon (our chef and friend since we've been in town) has promised us a good price on ferry crossing to Lombok. We give him 300,000 rupiah and he takes our names on a piece of paper. We are to return later in the afternoon for our tickets. This is how it works in Indonesia, so it's always a good idea to make friends with the locals and cultivate a relationship - they will help you out big time when you need something.

At the Bloo Lagoon, we spend hours of the day snorkeling. This is some of the best snorkeling we've seen, even better than the Great Barrier Reef. It's amazing because you can swim to it right from the beautiful sandy beach. The sand is so soft it feels like pancake batter between your toes. I see so many kinds of fish I can hardly begin to remember them all now. Fat blue puffer fish with yellow spots, long silver pike fish, a school of a hundred trout, and big bowls of lettuce green coral. We have lunch at the Bloo Lagoon Cafe. I try the Bali coffee, which is unfiltered grounds in typical Balinese fashion, but it tastes good. Just sip carefully to avoid the sludge. We have a leisurely stroll back through town toward Lemonhouse, where I leave Chris to head to the well-named White Sandy Beach. I am just not done swimming, and looking forward to some time alone - which is rare when traveling full-time with a companion in third world countries.



Cow path to White Sand Beach

I proceed past the ferry terminal and turn left at the two big cows and head up a steep gravelly hill, serenaded by chickens. Then it's down the other side of the gravelly hill until you turn a corner and "bam baby" - there's your first glimpse of White Sandy Beach. Moby's "Porcelain" is playing in my head and, rightly so, I feel like I've discovered my own private slice of Indian Ocean paradise. I trek through tropical bush and heaving coconut trees on a small dirt path to the beach. There are only 6 or so other people enjoying the sand and I luxuriate in a long swim in the warm ocean before settling on my sarong for a good read. A friendly local has plopped down next to me with his guitar. He's wearing nothing but a pinstriped speedo and a silver playboy necklace. Awesome. The Balinese people are unfailingly friendly, generous and helpful, so I decide to trust this silly man. He would like to practice his English, so I indulge him for a few minutes, how can I refuse such a genuine desire? I am rewarded with a personalized song. The guitar is lovely, and the singing seems to be a compilation of every sentence he knows in English. It goes something like this:

Welcome
to Padang Bai
How are you today?
You swim today in Padang Bai
Soon you leave
But come back
to Padang Bai
America love Bali
so beautiful
I hope you like Padang Bai



Discovering White Sand Beach

This is Indonesia...I smile away and enjoy the moment. Eventually, after a very long story in half English half Indonesian - something about Obama and Indonesian boats - I head home. The Indonesians love to talk about Obama because he went to school in Jakarta for a few years. I have just passed the cows at the bottom of the gravelly hill when I hear a voice behind me: "Kristin - I bring you to Lemonhouse!" Ketut happened to be cruising by on her motorbike. She pulls over on the side of the road and I excitedly hop on, hoping I won't later regret my helmetless state. We proceed down the tiny winding alley to Lemonhouse, dodging other motorbikes (how do they all fit?!), and I make it alive at the bottom of the steps to home. In all seriousness I've been dying to try out one of these things and I had so much fun riding along with Ketut.

After a cold shower, we head to town for dinner. We pass Nanon at the Cafe, and he has our ferry tickets for us. Yay! We pop in to Puri Rai for dinner tonight, and it is the best meal we've ever had. For only $3.30 USD I receive a grilled Mahi Mahi steak on a bed of wilted greens with a trio of homemade salsas, and a tower of rice shaped like a temple. Yes, I will be worshipping this meal. There's even a cute little sign in the restaurant: "Thank you fisherman for providing us with the best fresh seafood" - they pull it right out of the bay across the street. You can't get fish that's fresher, I beg you to try.

The Mother Temple

The next stop on our whirlwind tour of Bali was to see Pura Besakih, or "The Mother Temple".

Our guide warned us before we went to get our tickets that they would try to rip us off, charge exorbitant rates, force us to use a guide (which we would have to pay for) etc. He let us know that we shouldn't pay much more than 50,000 rp (Indonesian dollars - about $5 US.) for a guide, and another 35,000 for the tickets. Despite the warnings, we still managed to get ripped off. :-) That said, our 'Rip Off" was for a grand total of $15 or so, and we had a three hour guided tour of this HUGE temple complex. With construction starting around the year 800 AD, this Hindu temple is both the oldest, and the largest in Bali. Built on the south slope of Mount Agung, there are twenty-two individual temples. It extends over what seemed to be near a mile up the side of the mountain, with main temples on the East, West, North and South.

The carving of the entirely black volcanic stone is incredibly detailed, with representations of the Hindu gods, as well as dragons to protect the temples, and various other religiously significant depictions.




All in all the visit was well worth what we paid, even though our driver seemed almost upset at how much we paid in the end.

Catchup!

Just a quick note, we skipped over our entire road trip up the Australian coast, and our visit to Perth, due to a lack of internet during those adventures. We will be back-filling the blog with some posts, so go back in time a bit and see what we have been up to!

Much more to come about Bali, and our travels in Asia!

No Power, No Worries

Bintang during EuroCup at Topi, 2am

We have befriended a young Swedish couple and are talking of traveling together. Emily,
Dan, Chris and I took the cow path to white sandy beach today. It was a luxurious day of
sunbathing and swimming, watching the ferries putt into the harbor. There are just a few
bamboo huts with thatched roofs selling coconuts and simple food on the beach. We are all
tired from staying up all night to watch the Euro Cup at Topi, so we decide to watch a
movie. Twenty minutes later, the power has blown. All our neighbors seem to have power, but

Our American-Swedish game night, sans power

our house is black. As there's no one around to take care of this issue, we wander about
trying to find the breaker, unsuccessfully. Faced with the prospect of as long hot
fanless night, our only option is to raid the fridge of Bintang and play cards until we
no longer care. We take turns learning Swedish card games and teaching American ones.
Many are the same game by a different name. The beer is gone now so we opt to head to

town for a refill. When we walk out the door we notice the breaker just outside.
Unbelievable. We flip it and power is back! We are having so much fun with beer and games
that we proceed as planned and pretend the power hasn't returned.

The Day We Saw Everything

5am - Morning prayer sounds (like it's time for fourth period), followed by chanting for 15 minutes.

9am - Breakfast: banana pancake, fresh fruit, coffee. Boats honk arrival in the harbor.
Ali takes us to a traditional Balinese dance performance. The Sekehe Barong Sila Budaya, where we watch the Barong and Kris Dance. Something about the eternal fight between good and evil spirits represented by monsters with wonderfully elaborate costumes made from real flowers and hair. I am oddly reminded of Cousin It. Beautiful Balinese women with handmade frangipani headdresses dance with painted eyes wide open, unblinking. Emphasis on fluttering fingers and careful, measured foot placement. Busloads of Muslim children from Java literally wait in line to have their photo taken with us after the performance instead of with the widely fantastical dragon from the play.

Traditional Indonesian boat in Padang Bai harbor

11am - Walk the town of Ubud, great shopping. Local artisans have made the town quite popular (silver smiths, painters and wood carvers). Also here: Monkey Forest. I would not recommend feeding the monkeys bananas (which the locals sell at the entrance to Monkey Forest). They are mean, they hiss at you and have massive fangs. Neither will they hesitate to jump on you and take your watch, your credit card, and sunglasses and sell them at the nearest pawn shop, perhaps after a fancy lunch and shopping excursion. We indulge in a fried spring roll/taquito hybrid from a street vendor, who chops it into pieces with tiny scissors and then tops it off with many small green chilies, serving it to us in a brown paper square stapled into a pyramid. Delicious. And fried.

1pm - Lunch at a local restaurant per our request. Ali has eaten here many times before, they serve traditional Balinese pig, which is slow roasted over a spit and then displayed in a glass enclosure at the front of the restaurant. Tehbotl to drink (bottled sweetened iced tea). Our food arrives with many small bits and pieces, some roasted, some resemble jerky, and one bit looks like intestine. It's served on a bed of rice with a spicy green sauce unique to the restaurant. We bravely dig in and ask no questions. When we are down to three last questionable bits, we ask Ali about them. The pig lung is dried like jerky and quite tasty. The intestine we both leave on the plate.

At the coffee plantation - in the jungle, baby!

2pm - Coffee plantation. They grow everything here, from cinnamon bark to vanilla pods, to cocoa, Arabica beans, and limes. After touring the gardens and various flora we taste 5 varieties of coffee and several teas - including saffron, ginseng and lemongrass teas. The vanilla and coconut coffees are delicious and the ginseng coffee is amazing. Also on order, the special Luwak coffee - from the shit of the weasel-like Asian Palm Civit. It's alright, but not worth the extraordinary prices charged. It is one of the world's most expensive coffees. A warning to the coffee drinkers out there, the Balinese do not strain their coffee, but serve it with an unflattering sludge at the bottom of the cup - do not gulp every last sip of your coffee or you will have a mouthful of grounds!

3pm - Lake Batur. Unfortunately there's no swimming in this big, beautiful lake because of the volcano explosion in 1999. They are, however, farming fish in this lake today for food for the villagers. There's a startling blackened lava trail still visible on the south-western slope of Mount Batur from the 1968 explosion (which killed 1700 people!), nothing grows there. But tourists hike up this active volcano every day.

The Balinese leave these at the entrance to
their homes and temples as offerings
to the gods for protection, daily

3:30pm - The Mother Temple, or Pura Besakih. Chris did a whole post on this place, so I will summarize here: it's 1300 years old, and resides on the sunny side of Mount Agung. The entire site, consisting of 52 buildings, is constructed from lava stone, which gives the temple it's famous black facade. Each temple has 11 palm-thatched roofs (which get re-thatched every 20 years), and statues of the 4 Hindu gods. Construction is underway on one of the buildings and workers are balanced on bamboo (!) scaffolding high in the air.

4pm - Rice paddies. It must not be rice harvesting season, because there is no water in the paddies. They have the stepped, green resemblanjce to the photos I've seen in National Geographic, but are slightly disappointing without the water and sky reflection. There is, however, beautiful jungle and flowering frangipani trees surrounding.

Beautiful Bali

Balinese Chickens

We arrive glistening in Denpasar at 8:30 Saturday morning. We exit the back of the plane onto the tarmac and are welcomed by a heat wave. Finally, warm again. A bus takes us on a brief ride to the terminal entrance which, of course, is an ancient looking temple gate. After security we are greeted by our driver, Putu Ali, and his adorable 5-year-old son - who begged to go with him to the airport to avoid school. The children attend school 6 days a week here. The little cutie already knows English and greets us excitedly with a hand shake.

Alley to our B&B

The one-hour drive from Denpasar to Padang Bai, where we will be staying for our first few days, is dizzying from the flurry of cultural sights. Towering, colorful statues of Vishnu encompass several round-abouts. Motorbikes dodge in and out of traffic at an alarming pace. Some are laden with impossibly large loads of groceries, "cow food" or even families of five. Helmets and traffic signals are merely a suggestion. Women carry wide baskets of produce on their heads. Chickens line the streets, clucking with great commotion from under their upside-down grass baskets. They are kept this way to make them more aggressive for cock fights, which are illegal but take place nonetheless.

View from Lemonhouse

Despite all these cultural differences, there are similarities too. Ali's baby boy loves SpongeBob and watches it religiously before school each day.

Ali takes us up 68 narrow, steep stairs to Lemonhouse. The hotel is more of a big house with just three double rooms and one four bed dorm, perched atop a hill overlooking the village and the Indian Ocean. Our room is the most beautiful we've stayed in since we left home 9 months ago, and the bed and breakfast atmosphere is a welcome respite from the crowded, noisy hostels we've become accustomed to. At $24 a night, we're looking forward to a month or two of leisure and sightseeing in Bali. Ben and Clare, our happy hosts, are more than helpful getting us settled in town.

Blue Lagoon

Upon check in we make a German friend and he shows us town - a small fishing village. We head to lunch at Topi Inn. Delicious chicken satay for just $5 USD - one of the pricier items on the menu. Then we climb a hill and descend a few stairs into the turquoise majesty of the Blue Lagoon. A small bay with excellent snorkeling and water so clear you're not sure its there. Vendors approach us on the beach offering everything from hand made wood necklaces to massages.

Dinner again at the Topi Inn, we're wary of getting sick from the local water and on our first few days we're exercising caution as we choose our food. We set out with our friends from the hotel, including a salmon farmer from Tasmania and share our meal over international banter and a few large Bintang.

Topi Inn

Hindu is the primary religion here. Prayer is called out over the village microphone 3 times daily. I listen to the Basa Bali (local language) chanting while I brush my teeth and enjoy our beautiful balcony view. I accidentally use the sink water instead of our bottled water and spend the night hoping I don't get sick, which everyone tells us is inevitable. But I wake up and feel great. Phew.

Fishing the Great Barrier Reef

One of the activities that I have been most excited about doing while we are in Australia, is fishing the Great Barrier Reef!

It's the type of thing that you really just can't experience anywhere else, and something that I felt was a must-do. Since we had already snorkeled on the south end of the great barrier reef in the Whitsunday Islands, when we got to the north I decided to go fishing, while Krissy and Paul went for another snorkeling adventure.

It was definitely the right call!

We took off early from Port Douglas, a beautiful little town in FNQ (Far North Queensland), and headed about an hour straight east onto the reef. Contrary to our assumption prior to travelling in Australia, the Great Barrier Reef sits roughly 10-15 miles off the coast - it's not something you just swim to from the beach.

The day was a bit overcast, but that wasn't a problem at all! We stopped at something like 7 or 8 different fishing holes along the reef, and I caught fish at almost all of them! My first catch came not 2 minutes after we arrived at our first stop, sadly it was less than an inch under-sized so it wasn't a keeper.

The highlight came about two hours into the day trip, when I caught a pretty little 8-10 inch parrotfish, and proudly proclaimed it to be bait! The boat operators were in complete agreement, and helped me put it back on the hook, alive!

I sent it back down and felt it swimming about on my line, but didn't get any bites at that stop. I pulled it in and threw it down at our next hole, still alive. With a live bait fish, the bigger fish will play with it a bit, sucking it into their mouth then pushing it back out. They key is to feel this on the line, but ignore it, and wait until the big fish swallows it whole and takes off! Then you set the hook, and reel it in! The results? This bad boy!

A lovely 10-12 lb. coral trout. This delicious fish sells for over $20/lb, and is VERY good eating fish. It would turn out to be not the biggest catch of the day, but the best eating fish! In the end I lost count of all my catches, bringing in at least 5 different species, but kept just the one, big pretty fish.

When I got back in from fishing, Paul and Krissy were waiting for me, and were quite excited that I had brought home dinner! We used the grill at the RV Park, and fried it up with some roasted red potatoes. YUMMMY