Let me start by saying that Christmas on the "Island of the Gods" is very cool. Check that, very warm. South of the equator, but just barely, in December is summer time. Of course, at 0 degrees latitude, it's always warm. And no, the toilet water does not spin in the opposite direction. But I digress. I'm used to feeling a bit chilly or even down right cold during the month of December. This was a new experience. Didn't really feel like Christmas.
Aside from being warmer than the Ott's are used to, we had a great time. We stayed at the Westin hotel in Nusa Dua which means Second Island. If you look at Bali on the map, there is a small peninsula at the bottom of the island which is barely attached, making it look like a separate island. This is where Nusa Dua got it's name. Also, in case you didn't know, Indonesia is the fourth most populated nation in the world with about 238 million people. And I think all of them ride scooters.
The first couple of days we just stayed by the pool soaking up some rain, some sun, some ping pong (with Yuri and Elena from Siberia) and plenty of Bintang (the local brew). After we were all sufficiently sunburned, we decided to get off the reservation and go experience some local culture. We hired a driver, named Agus, who spoke English quite well and had a minivan big enough for the whole brood. Cost us 400,000 Indonesian Rupia or US$43. Here's where the photos begin but don't click over yet. You need to know what you're looking at.
The first stop was an Indonesian Dance show. The show featured traditional costumes (very bright), traditional music (hammers on xylophones and a whiny violin kind of thing), traditional dance (bend your hand backwards and arch your back while sticking out your butt) and some, perhaps traditional but, crude antics. Let's just say, it was a bit uncomfortable to watch sitting next to my 13 year old daughter. Something about animals with erections and getting schtupped with a bamboo pole just didn't amuse her. Go figure.
Next we were off to Ubud which is in the middle part of the island. Most of the roads are quite narrow and everyone rides a scooter. Traffic laws are loosely obeyed and nobody seems to get uptight about the driving. No road rage here.
After visiting a silver jewelry crafter, we stopped for lunch at a Indo/Western style restaurant. Cool pizza oven. Then we headed further north to check out the famous rice terraces. Pretty impressive but definitely a tourist attraction. Super aggressive hawkers right at the stopping place. I thought Julie was going to blow a gasket at this one lady.
Next stop was an Agro Tourism farm. This place grew coffee, cocoa, ginseng, tea, pineapples and even produced Luwak coffee. A Luwak is an animal that looks like a ferret. Slender, furry and kind of cute. The Luwak is renowned for it's contribution to coffee. The Luwak eats the beans, then poops them out, whole. Then the poop beans get collected, roasted and ground into coffee which sells for $400 a pound. That's $400 US! We got the chance to taste it and I thought it was pretty good. The rest of the crowd was either grossed out or just didn't like it. Oh well.
On the way back to the hotel, we had to stop and tour one of the many temples that are all over the place. Some people have temples built into the homes and some use the public or town temples. We visited a public temple. Very serious business, these temples. Lots of rules and do's and dont's. Quite interesting, though.
We kept Agus for about 13 hours that day. Since we stayed out quite a bit longer than we thought, we decided to give him a 50% tip and handed him an extra 200,000 rupia (US$20). May sound cheap but it seriously made his day!
Our next adventure took us to Uluwatu to see the sunset. Around the island, there are a few Monkey Forests. They are, as you would guess, a place where monkeys hang out and entertain the tourons like us. However, the monkeys in Uluwatu have a reputation as being a bit nasty. Whatever the reason, we found out first hand how they roll. Annette was standing around just taking it all in when one of these furry little primates snuck up behind her and swiped her shoe! He promptly scooted right to the edge of the cliff and proceeded to dismantle the flip flop by pulling the thing apart! As luck would have it, yeah right, there was a local there who offered to get the shoe back. Anything to keep Annette from having to walk around barefoot. So, for 10,000 rupia, this little brown, toothless, monkey wrangler lady tosses out a couple of candy bars and then walks right over to collect the shoe. I guess everybody has to make a buck!
The last night we were there, we ran across a really neat section called Seminyak. Looked the same as the rest of the island but when you looked closer, there were all types of neat high end shops, hotels and restaurants. We ended up having dinner at a place called Potato Head Beach Club. From the outside, the whole building was covered in old window shutters. All different colors and sizes. Looked kind of rickety, actually.
Inside however, there was a lush, green lawn area surrounded by a horseshoe shaped collection of tables, bars and restaurants. All of this opened up to a nice beach with good sized waves crashing ashore. To spice things up a bit more, there was an infinity pool surrounded by huge sun beds where all types of beautiful people and Asian tourists in Speedos were lounging about. We all wished we would have found out about that place earlier.
So, that about sums up the Bali experience. A bit like Thailand but different. When we polled our crowd as to which was better Bali or Thailand, the group split pretty evenly. I personally thought that the people in Thailand were smarter and better in the service aspect. Also, Thailand is only about 2 hours by direct flight where Bali is about 4.5 hours direct. But Bali just seemed to have some character that Thailand didn't. The Thai people are polite, sincere and pretty. But, Bali was a little cheaper and didn't have all of the hookers and lady boys. Either way, both were fantastic.
Hope you enjoy the photos. Alex had a great trip too. Look for a post soon on his adventure.
