We started in Kuta, a big tourist town on the south west coast of Bali. It is famous for having some of the best surfing in the world and that McDonald's will deliver to you on the beach :| I wasn't a massive fan of Kuta, I thought it had a bit of a muscle bound kind of vibe, that mixed with the constant danger of a bike running straight through you turned me off it! We stayed for two nights then made our way up to Ubud in the middle of the island.
Ubud was more my style, we stayed on Monkey Forest Road in hotel that served us breakfast to our door and had an infinity pool! Quite the step up for us lowly backpackers! it was Colm's birthday while we were in Ubud so we decided to celebrate it by going rafting. The rafting was a very different experience to the one in Chaing Mai, this river actually had a current! We travelled for about 2.5 hours down 20k of gentle to not so gentle rapids. The guide had a trick which involved him pointing out something in a tree, then while we'd all turn to look at it the raft slammed into a wall while going backwards throwing everyone flying back. He managed to get all of us once, but poor old Val who was conveniently located in front of the guide was tricked into landing on his lap at least 3 times.
The day after Colm's birthday we rented a car & driver for a tour of the north west of the island. We saw lots of temples, rice fields and grew an appreciation for how beautiful Bali is outside of Kuta.
The next stop for us was the Gili Islands, a set of 3 small islands located off a bigger island to the east called Lombok. We had two options to get there, the fast boat which took one hour or the slow boat/bus/boat option which took all day. We choose the cheap option ;) The English girl Alex we had been travelling with for about 2 months had left us in Koh Tao (I forgot to mention that) and gone ahead to Indonesia, the last we knew she was staying in Alex Hostel on Gili T so we headed there. We arrived and started heading towards where we thought her hostel was and to give an idea of how memorable Alex is and how small the Gilis are we got talking to an Indonesian on one of the paths who knew Alex. It seems she had made quite an impression on them! He bought us straight to the hostel and bingo there she was. Well not really, we saw all her stuff so knew we had the right place but she was out. Close enough though.
The locals running the hostels on that path soon became our friends. They all looked out for each other and seemed to have great banter. An example of that is we found a room for 2 but needed a room for 4, the guy who owned it brought us to 4 other places to help us find a room for 4. In the end we took his room for 2 and he found us another room for 4. The thing is, we could have taken any room and he would have been fine with it, he helped us just to help us and not for profit. It was great!
We arrived on the Gilis just in time for the start of the world cup. We spent many nights in an Irish bar watching the pool games, the bar had a huge screen just for the world cup. The island somehow produced a good crowd of national supporters for nearly every game, I have no idea where all these Germans, Dutch, Danish, English and French (tehehe) were during the day but they arrived in groups at night to support their team. It created a great atmosphere for every game, except when the Brits boo'd the American national anthem.
On our third night on the island we went drinking with the manager of our huts and his mates. We tried one of the local brews, a type of rice wine which actually tasted like Limoncello. From there we headed to the late bar/club on the island and ran into a girl I met travelling in Bangkok way back in July 2009. Much dancing was had with the locals.
We did more diving in Gili T with a great place called Buddha Dive. I dived twice and snorkelled twice, each time was amazing! The previous dives I had done usually featured on a dive line with a line tied to a buoy which went down the first 10-15meters. This was very handy for me as I have trouble descending and equalising my ears. However all the dives sites off the Gilis were in open water and a free falling descend. I was worried I would have a lot of trouble going down but for the first time ever while diving I was able to equalise without much trouble! Awesome!
On the first dive we headed to a place called shark point, but only saw one black tipped reef shark. It was pretty far away and not dangerous so swimming with sharks is still on the to do list! This was the first time I dived in a a really strong current on, we literally had to do nothing for the first half of the dive, just floated along a drop point looking at fishes, turtles and coral. Unfortunately the second half of the dive didn't go so well, we swam into a swell which held us in the same place for about 10 minutes! This was when we saw the shark in the distance so we couldn't even swim after it to have a better look. Doh!
The snorkelling I did here was different to ones I've done before, the dive boat brought me out with them when they went to the open water sites and I would go snorkelling off the boat. The currents were pretty strong as I've saw so on one trip floated 5km around the island! The boat would trail us and pick me up before we started looking for the divers who usually would have been swept the same distance as me. I saw the most turtles on these trips instead of diving, they are usually about 10 meters down and hard to get close to but one morning I got up early to go snorkelling and we found a turtle about 6 meters down. I dove down and managed to swim along right next to the turtle for about 15 seconds, it was an amazing experience. They really are beautiful creatures!
Gili T seemed to be a place for running into lost friends, we also met a couple of Canadians we had met way back in Bodhi Villa in Cambodia. It just emphasised how the majority go the same route, its a small world & paradise attracts everyone!
PS. I started this blog post last week and was waiting to add the pictures before I posted it. In the time since I realised I've been doing the countries and whoever actually reads this an injustice. One of the best things about travelling is the people I meet and what I learn about the places I've been. From now on I'll attempt to have a more balanced blog. Bearing in mind this blog post is already quiet long instead of combining the stories of how I heard these facts I'll just tell you a couple of interesting things I learned about Indonesia.
- Indonesia is the world’s 4th most populated country, it has 230 million people over about 17,500 islands.
- It has the world’s largest population of Muslims, yet Bali with a population of 3.5 million is 93% Hindu.
- The Bali Hindu calendar which is called Pawukon was explained to me,it a 210-day ritual calendar which is divided into weeks which are called Wuku, months are called Sasih. After this it gets a bit complicated to quote a website,
"The Pawukon, brought over from Java in the 14th century, is a complex cycle of numerological conjunctions that provides the basic schedule for ritual activities on Bali."
To understand that sentence lets go quote wiki,
The calendar consists of 10 different concurrent weeks of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 days. On the first day of the year it is the first day of all the ten weeks. Because 210 is not divisible by 4, 8, or 9 - extra days must be added to the 4, 8, and 9 day weeks.
The day of new year, Nyepi, is a day of quiet reflection and self introspection to decide on values. Everything closes, I mean everything, from shops to the International Airport! Security men called Pecalangs patrol the streets. Their job is described as to control the security of the street but also to stop any activities that disturb Nyepi. No traffic is allowed, not only cars but also people, who have to stay in their own houses. The lead up and following day consist of parades and celebration parties but the idea is to cleanse your inner self for a new year.
- The burial of the dead on Bali is a very different affair, when someone dies their body is burned to free their spirit to go back into the world. The burial ceremony is expensive so is only conducted every 4 or 5 months when a number of people can be burned together to share the cost. In the mean time the person is buried and then dug up for the burning at the appropriate time. The exception to the case is if a priest dies, his ceremony is conducted as soon as possible to allow his holy spirit free!
- Each town in Bali has at least three temples representing the Gods. The layout of these temples is split into 3 compounds, the first is a wide open area, usually a garden where people can come to prepare for celebrations or relax. The second compound is for the supporting facilities of the temple. Kitchens, dorms etc. The third is the most holy and scared area of the temple, only priests or people in traditional dress are allowed to enter. The area has the high towers or padmasana shown in the pictures above. Bali is about the size of Cork, and has more than 10,000 temples. Each house also has a shrine which is regarded as a small temple, so Bali has more temples than homes!
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