Our Granny's staff playing music on the beach by night
Attracted a huge crowd of foreigners and locals alike, danced around candelight to the island beats <3
Our favorite fruit lady with exotic ones like snake fruit, passion fruit, star fruits
The hostel had incredibly friendly beachin' staff that manned the bar by night, and switched between playing music and surfing in their local hotspot we quickly settled into during the day. The dorm rooms had colored mosquito net tents, so bugs were no problem. The local beer is called Bintang, and for liquor there's nothing like Arak Attackto really feel like you're in Bali. A rough, petrol-tasting clear liquid, mixed with a splash of lemon (if you're lucky). Kuta beach and it's hopping downtown is definitely tourist central, but still great to start out with. I spent my first two hot days lounging beachside with a group of new friends from the hostel, singing and playing some guitar and drums with our Reggae staff. We shopped around a bit and I got my first ever massage: $5.00 for a 1-hr full body massage!! Gotta say it was a little piece of heaven getting oiled down and listening to Balinese music while a young Balinese girl worked magic on me. Indonesian food is incredible, and dirt cheap if you want it to be. Usually a mix of noodles or rice, maybe some veggies in a delicious spicy sauce, and usually some chicken satay. Sitting with friends at a little local place, it's worth it to order 5 or 6 different plates and do it buffet style: each plate is about 0.50 - $1.50. I discovered my new favorite restaurant: Sushi Tei. It's a 5 star looking venue, with incredibly quick service, mouth watering picture books of all the sushi and seafoods imaginable, and easily still making the budget!
For only $55.00 each, we had a private driver take us on a two day guided tour, letting us cut and create to make it our own. On the first day we toured a spice farm, a gold and silver factory (never complaining about how boring my job can be), and after driving through the art district of Ubud we went through an incredible art gallery of works made by the locals. We went through some outdoor temples and watched a famous Barong and Kris performance at one. This classic Balinese story is a colorful dance about the eternal battle between good and evil. One of my most unforgettable experiences was washing away my sins with the locals and giving the traditional bamboo art offering to the Hindi gods at the Pura Tirta Empul temple. A natural hot spring feeds this religious temple, where people bathe under 12 fountains in a cool holy pool. As I'm not Indonesian, I rented a sarong, offered to the Hindi gods, then was told to pray and wish well for those who need it: friends, family, the world. I walked up to each fountain to wash my face three times and head once. Each fountain has a different representation (forgiveness, arguments, a good future...) to think about as you go up. We drove up through the rice paddies and through the mountain villages, where the more untouched Balinese culture came out. We ended the day at a delicious buffet dinner outside overlooking the active volcano and Mouth Kintomani, and settled into an artist/home stay for the night.
These offerings are outside each store front, temple, grocery store, house - you name it
What better way to begin your day than by lavishing under some natural hot springs in the middle of a rainforest? After waking up with the locals there, we went trekking through the wilderness to a giant hidden waterfall. Drove through beautiful little towns and rice fields again on our way down the mountain and got a tour of a coffee plantation. The Balinese are famous for creating the world's most expensive coffee: Kopi Luwok (feces coffee). A civet is a weasel-like animal known to be a picky eater, that roams the plantation and swallows only the best red coffee beans whole, then poops them out - and there's our coffee! The mix of stomach enzymes and the animal's pickiness makes this an insanely expensive delicacy to the rich folk of the world, so I drank a cup ($5.00 was a steal). I'd say it was strong and some darn good coffee...but wouldn't join the elite few spending hundreds on it. We ended our day at one of Bali's most famous temples, Tanah Lot, for sunset. When the tide comes in this becomes an island temple; and as the sun sets each night, hundreds of little birds (believed to be dead spirits) all fly away from the cliff together. We went to a local bar in Ubud for some live Balinese bands playing, drinks, and some Balinese hookah!
Cat poop coffee - and got to sample 8 different other kinds too
Indonesian buffet dinner overlooking Mount Kintimani
Natural Hot Springs wake up
For our last two days in Ubud, the artsy and more laid back area, we rented scooters and drove out to explore some famous rice fields about 45 min away. I was a bit shaky on stop and starting, but I SCOOTERED in the main streets of Bali! We wandered Ubud market where haggling at lower than 50% of store owners offers is the norm - I tell you it works up an appetite all this good-natured bargaining, but they're always so darn friendly and happy at the end of every deal. A group of us went through one of my top things to do in Bali: the sacred Monkey Forest, a mix of temples, shrines and sanctuaries in a rainforest where the monkeys roam wild and free. At first we had trouble coaxing them towards us, but once we bought some banana's the buggers went for the attack! We had them in our purses, reaching into pockets, and I got my hair checked for bugs before it was bitten when I tried to shake him off. At least we were prepped. Others lost their sunglasses, earrings, lighters, and more.
The absolute best thing I did though wasn't planned. A village near Ubud was having a cremation ceremony for a dead man, and so we bought sarongs to fit in on a little side street and made our way to the parade. An enormous cow/bull elegantly decorated and made out of paper mache, was paraded down the street first, with about a third of the village men carrying it with a bamboo base they created. Next was a tall staircase, followed by a giant white and ornately colored shrine with two village leaders on top and the dead man's picture and body. The women and children walk touching a colored rope in between. Everyone is cordial, laughing and joking around, as the parade continues for about 30 minutes. At the temple, the thirty or so men carrying the bull suddenly began running around, turning it like a top three times as fast as they could, before running to the center. The process involved costumes, the body and village offerings being put inside the bull, and then the entire thing was doused in flame and exploded in fire. I mean exploded. We sat nearby and jumped up at the heat, moving back several feet, and then several more after that from the enormous bonfire. As we watched, there was a malfunction. The body didn't drop straight down, so the men were hooting with laughter as they used bamboo sticks to shove the dead man's legs into the bonfire with the rest of his body. We learnt from a boy that funerals are incredibly festive events with all their costumes, customs, food shared and life celebrated. Best cultural thing I did there.
