Her View 

Indonesia - Caywood's perspective

Bali

Bali: an island of pure paradise. Our last country in Asia. 90% Hindu. Our final foreign language-speaking country. A mysterious, breathtaking home to a wonderful Balinese culture, and many sweet and generous Balinese people. Since Bali was our only destination in Indonesia, we decided to stay a full nine days on the island, splitting our time between Ubud and Sanur. Our first four days were spent at an amazing bungalow near the center of Ubud. We learned our first day in Ubud that the majority of Balinese people own a large area of land, consisting of many buildings including a temple. Our lodge was no exception. You enter an exquisite doorway to a large courtyard with many buildings. The front buildings are for the family who lives there; behind that lies the temple. On top of that there are a few different buildings that have been transformed into bungalow rooms. Our room, number 5, was near the back of their property and our front porch opened up right into the tropical jungle. Each morning we shared a delicious homemade breakfast on our front porch with the beautiful green view and the sounds of birds, roosters, and more. 

Our first day in Ubud we chose two attractions: the elephant caves (Gpa Gojah) and the sacred monkey forest. After about an hour walk in the sweltering, humid 89 degree weather, we arrived at the elephant cave. We weren’t sure what to expect to begin with, but the actual cave did not meet our expectations. It was a very small cave and had practically nothing inside. The door to the cave was the only interesting thing about it. The thing that we ended up enjoying very much about the elephant cave was the jungle, trees, and waterfall around the cave. Thank goodness for this, or the elephant cave wouldn’t have even been worth our $1.20 entrance fee.

A quick taxi ride (we were not making the walking mistake again) led us to the sacred monkey forest - my favorite thing we have done on the entire trip so far! We only paid 30,000 rupiah each to get in, and this was the best $2.40 I have ever spent. We walked around inside this huge jungle for at least two hours. Everywhere you turned there were monkeys. Baby monkeys, grumpy old man monkeys, mama monkeys, everyone! And they weren’t scared of humans at all, nor were they aggressive. Well, a few of the older, bigger monkeys had aggressive thoughts if bananas were involved, but they were easy to shoo off. These monkeys were seriously the cutest thing. I had the best time. By the end of the day I had held many monkeys on my shoulders and in my laps, two different baby monkeys tried to eat my shirt, and we got to feed the monkeys bananas. I cannot describe my excitement. I just want to live in the sacred monkey forest. The end.

Day two was going to be our busiest day in Bali, because we planned a full day tour to knock out everything else on our list: the traditional Baring and Keris Dance, the Ubud art villages, the Tegallalang rice terraces, Mount Batur, a Bali coffee plantation, and the Spring Water Temple. Our private driver picked us up promptly at 8:30am to drive us to Batabulan Village for the traditional Balinese dance portraying the battle between an evil spirit and a good spirit. This hour-long dance performance was interesting to watch. My favorite part was actually the Balinese music that was played the entire time. Also I loved that they let you take a picture before the dance started with an actual dancer… on your own camera… for no charge. The dance was the priciest attraction we did at 100,000 rupiah per ticket, which equates to about $8. But I think it was worth it to see this huge piece of Balinese culture.

Next we hopped back in the car and enjoyed the AC on the way to the Ubud art villages. We stopped at a gold and silver making shop and a painting shop, but decided to forgo the wood carving one. On yesterday’s walk to the elephant cave we saw quite a few wood carving shops and felt we were good on that. It was neat to see the ladies actually making some jewelry and some gentlemen painting traditional Balinese art, but I did feel a bit too pressured to buy. Off to the rice terraces.

The rice terraces were really awesome to see, and the entrance fee was less than 50 cents. On the way to Tegallalang Village we drove through a different village’s rice fields and got to see the difference of some rice that was ready to be harvested and some that was not. Then when we arrived at Tegallalang Village, we couldn’t believe our eyes. We were at the top of a mountain and the rice fields were in all of the hills below us; it was a beautiful sight.

The next stop on our tour was the one we were probably most excited about. Mount Batur is an active volcano in Bali, and we were so excited to see it. Unfortunately, it was thunderstorming on and off all day (really all week), so we got up there, paid our two entrance fees, and were not able to see a thing because of the cloud coverage. We waited around for fifteen minutes or so, but knew the clouds were not going to dissipate and decided to head to the next stop. Seeing (and possibly hiking up) an active volcano is officially on our bucket list.

After a very windy road back down the mountain from the “viewing spot” of Mount Batur, we arrived at the coffee plantation. Oddly enough, my fiancé (a non-coffee drinker) told me later in the day that this was his favorite stop! Our driver gave us a great tour of the coffee plantation, pointing out coffee beans and various tropical fruits to us along the way. We also saw two lewak cats, which we were told were responsible for the process of making the most expensive coffee in the world. The lewak cats eat the red coffee beans once they are ripe, fully digest them, and poop them out. Their poop is collected and the beans are retrieved, cleaned, etc. Because of this process, this is the most expensive type of coffee in the world.

We actually found out later (after buying some of course) that in the last year lewak coffee has actually moved to the #2 spot, with the most expensive coffee in the world now being fully digested by elephants in Thailand. Regardless, we are excited that this was our souvenir from Indonesia. Half way through the tour of the coffee plantation a professional guide took over and let me grind and roast their Bali coffee beans by hand! Each and every process of making Bali coffee is all still done by hand. After the tour was complete, we got to taste twelve different types of tea, cocoa, and coffee - for free! Also there was no entrance fee for the plantation. Feliks and I both tried the four types of tea and the cocoa, and I tried the coffees. We couldn’t get over how delicious some of the teas were.

Our final stop of our tour was Tirta Empul, the Spring Water Temple. We definitely are templed out at this point but my research showed this is one of the most beautiful in Bali, and very unique because in the middle of the temple there is a natural spring which feeds fountains in which people go in (fully clothed) to pray. We didn’t stay too long, but it was definitely a sight to see and I’m glad we went. Entrance fee was very reasonable at $1.20 per person.

Our driver dropped us off in the city center of Ubud so we could visit the Ubud market before heading back to our lodge. We walked through the market, got tempted to buy a few things, then stopped in a restaurant on the way home. Feliks got the traditional Bali dish of crispy duck, and I had some amazing chicken fried rice. We got back to our lodge around 6:30pm and were exhausted. The next two days were wonderful days of relaxation in paradise.

After Ubud we took a shuttle bus to Sanur so we could enjoy a beach while in Bali. Sanur Seaview Hotel had a beautiful, tropical pool and was right on the shoreline. We spent four days here completely relaxing, enjoying the sun, and some delicious local food. Unfortunately our first day we both got fried to a crisp at the beach first and then the pool, but we both enjoyed relaxing for a total of three days before starting our last month of traveling.