After dinner, we decided to give Kuta a chance and head to some of the bars my friend recommended. At night, Kuta was even worse. We went to this one roof bar which was okay--it had a view of the Kuta "strip" and was filled mainly with Australians. We decided to walk around a bit to at least enjoy or make fun of some of the ridiculousness. We walked by a reggae bar which had some good live music, but was empty. Then, we walked into this absolutely ridiculous club called "The Bounty," it was out of a movie. The bottom floor had pool tables, crazy lighting, an area that would later turn into a foam party, animal prints everywhere and old wood and the waitors were dressed up as sailors. Then, we moved onto the next part of the club, upstairs and into a huge wooden ship that opened up to a dance floor, complete with a disco ball and small Indonesian men "battle break-dancing;" it was quite the scene.
Part of the dizzying Kuta strip at night
We decided to leave Kuta to head back to Seminyak after being chatted up by a group of 20-year olds and we realized we were clearly the oldest people there (granted, I'm only 22 and Christina is 24, but there's a wave of difference between a 20-year old, college partying traveler and a working young adult). The clubs in Seminyak were nicer and right on the beach, which made for a night atmosphere. One club was so old though, which was odd.
To get a cab back, we were majorly ripped off by cab drivers that band together and keep the rates high after midnight. It wasn't even that late, only about 12:30, and the drivers refused to take us for anything lower than 100,000 rupiahs (about $10) when the meter far was only 12-18,000 rupiahs. We gave our driver 50,000 and he yelled at us but we thought it was generous since the meter was only at 15,000; Christina got so sad she made us go into a German restaurant to eat a pretzel until he was gone. So, needless to say, our fore into Kuta wasn't too successful if you go to Bali, avoid it!
The next morning we had a delicious traditional breakfast provided by our hotel--a banana pancake sprinkled with lime and honey, and fresh fruit--and waited for Made and Coman to pick us up to take us to Gunang Kawi, ancient ruins up in the rice paddies of central Bali; Telalangang, the area with rolling, famous rice terraces; and to Ubud where we would end our trip.
The whole day trip was amazing. It was the first day I felt like we were in the mythic island paradise that I'd always thought Bali was. Driving up to Ubud, through the island, we passed a number of villages, including one Batik and wood carving village and another village, Celuk, where the people were metal workers, making beautiful gold jewelry (much of it was very expensive). On the drive up though, before we got into the heart of the island, we did pass many villages where again we saw signs of environmental exploitation--huge piles of wood, piled 5 feet high along hundreds of meter of road. Made told us that most of the wood came from Java, not Bali, but it was still deforested from somewhere...
Our first stop on the day trip were the ruins of Gunung Kawi, also over 1000 years old, which were awesome, with these enormous stone carvings set into huge rock slabs. Our guidebook said that it was rumored that these carvings were done in a day, but it just didn't seem possible. Gunung Kawi was also a temple. We had to climb a good number of steps to get down to it--it was situated in this valley with a river running through it, surrounded by rice terraces, where the local people farmed, but did not live because it is a protected area. The temple was so quiet and peaceful, it was a very enjoyable experience.
Our guide, Made and Christina on the way down to Gunung Kawi
Me and Christina by the stone carvings at Gunung Kawi--you can tell how big they are!
After leaving the temple, we went into Telalangang, not too far away to go to a few stopping points. Made let us out at two lovely points where he told us to go and sit and "meditate." It was very relaxing looking at the terraces, but looking at them, your eyes would get lost, unable to look at just one. The sad part about this part of our day was that the viewpoints we were taken to were in tiny, extremely poor villages and many children and women would crowd around us trying to sell us postcards or little crafts; it was often hard to walk around them, to move them out of the way, which was definitely overwhelming, the amount of poverty that caused them to be so aggresive.
Rice terraces in Telalangang
One of the men working in the rice terraces in Telalangang selling palm hats
After the rice terraces, we headed into Ubud towards our hotel. Ubud was honestly the most adorbale town I've seen in all of Asia. It had tons of art shops, artsy boutiques, adorable cafes, spas and hippy-venues like palm or chakra reading. Before dropping us at our hotel, Made took us to the Monkey Forest, which is a forest filled with more monkeys! Made told us these monkeys were nicer, though they were certainly fiesty! The jumped on some people, posed for pictures, ate bananas with their hands, and put on shows for the tourists.
Art in Ubud
Entertaining monkeys in Monkey Forest
As the day was coming to a close in the late afternoon, Made and Coman dropped us off at our hotel and we bid them farewell. They were both so nice and definitely made our trip to Bali very special. We gave them a generous trip because Made was trying to start a family and Coman's wife was about to give birth to their second child!
Our hotel in Ubud was adorable--it was very authentic, situated IN a rice paddy and it had two nice pools overlooking the paddies, one freshwater and one saltwater, which was also built in the infinity pool style. Our bungalow was also very cute with an ornately decorated Balinese Batik door and a nice fountain in front.
Our bungalow in Ubud
We settled in, got some dinner, and wandered around the town and later had dessert before heading in at about 8pm for a swim in the saltwater pool. Ubud is incredibly quiet and relaxing, and everything shuts down between 10 and 11pm, so it's a great place for a getaway or a yoga retreat. In fact, there are many yoga and spa retreats in Ubud (this is where the author of "Eat Pray Love" went in Bali). And, before going to bed, we made spa appointments for the morning before leaving, definitely something to look forward to.
Cute cafe in Ubud
The next morning, we headed to the spa at our hotel for two-hour treatments. First I had a 15-minute foot reflexology which was interesting, then I had a 45 minute Balinese massage, which was amazing, not nearly as hard as a Thai massage. After that I had a body scrub, following by a milk bath treatment. Then, I got to soak in a flower bath for about 20 minutes and then sit in a jacuzzi for another 20 while I sipped sweet ginger tea. The entire package was $40...damn good deal!
So, thoroughly relaxed, we headed back to the airport to begin our journey back to Bangkok! It was a great vacation, the longest one I've taken while here (5 days) and it was the first trip that really felt like a
vacation, not just trekking around to see interesting things. I think part of that was because we stayed at nicer places than I usually stay in. All in all, it was a great trip and I would go back (just not to Kuta!); I still didn't get to see the volcano at Mount Batur, the floating temple, or some of the other things, so perhaps one day!
Sign of the conference that I attended (IUCN World Conservation Congress)
Sign of the conference that I attended (IUCN World Conservation Congress)
City living in Barcelona
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