Back to Bali

I returned to Bali for several days before I headed off to Singapore and then to my next placement in Cambodia (remember, this is back in July;)). These were my first travel days 'alone' or unscheduled is perhaps the better way to put it, because I wasn't alone for long - as it goes with travelling!

The picture below is at the Guest House I stayed at, which was lovely. I decided to try the strategy of sitting outside my room and reading a book and wait to meet other guests. Little did I know how successful this strategy would be!

It turns out the two girls staying next to me were super cool and successful Indonesian women who had incredibly cool international jobs, and were hilarious and fun. We grabbed dinner together and then they graciously invited me to join them on their tour around Bali to some main temple sites with a car they had hired. We covered a lot of ground and had some interesting conversation, never a dull moment with this girls!

What follows are what I'd say are some shots and short videos characteristic of Bali. Enjoy!

This was our first temple of the day. I hired a guide (mandatory for a foreigner) and he became my personal photographer for the tour, telling me where to stand for pictures. It was hilarious and awkward. You can see the volcano in the background.

Offerings

Guardian

Me and the girls

We stopped for lunch in Ubud, at a legendary restaurant with amazing ribs!
Next we drove all the way to the southern tip of Bali to Ulawatu - it was covered with monkeys and was very stunning, very dramatic. You are warned on the way in about monkeys and not to wear anything that can be taken - glasses, hats, bracelets, earrings, watch your camera, etc.

And they weren't kidding! They were ruthless...it was hilarious though and even though it was kind of a scam, it was amusing, so everyone walked away happy.
A scam? Well, the monkeys would steal someones flip flop for instance. Then, a 'monkey briber' would come by and throw a bag of food, a piece of fruit, etc. and the monkey would select what it wanted, and then throw away the stolen item when it was satisfied. Amidst the relief and shock, the monkey briber then would ask for money from the victim, who would happily pay, not realizing the monkey was trained. But hey, everyone got a good laugh!

The Gilis, aka heaven

There are three islands off the coast of Lombok called the Gili islands. There is a party island, a chilled island and an island somewhere in the middle of party and super chilled, Gili Air. We stayed on Gili Air. It was fantastic. It really was a tropical paradise and I wish I'd stayed longer (although much longer and you would go crazy with relaxation...its beautiful but not super stimulating...you can only relax in a loungey hut for so long before you start to worry you might lose all motivation to ever do anything ever again).

We spent a few days there, did some snorkeling, beach-bumming, beach walking, good-food eating, and partying (despite it not being the party island). How have I never known about Happy Hour until I came to Asia? This has been a serious knowledge gap!

On our way to the islands!
The bonus of being a solo traveler on this group was I got to have my own room one night, and it was saweet!! Open concept bathroom, big old bed...very luxurious.


On our snorkelling day we stopped and hung out on Gili Meno (the super chilled out island) and there was a sea turtle rescue/rehabilitation centre where they rescued babies as they were born and raise them till they are more likely to survive in the big bad ocean. Sea turtles are incredible! It was fascinating to see them swimming among the corals!

It was so beautiful, very hot.

These are examples of the loungey huts I mentioned. Here are some of the girls on my trip, three friends from Colorado.


The group of us coming back from our day of snorkeling and turtle viewing...we had a rough trip since we all partied a little too hard the previous night. Oops. A combination of gravol, advil and immodium set me right for the day though.
Our guide swam like a fish and dove down deep to point our sea turtles...it was really cool because the current was really strong where we were snorkeling so you could just kind of float along. There was a lot of what people were calling 'sea lice'. This stung and liked to get you under your bathing suit and bite in rude places.

Some sunset shots, the volcano on Bali in the background.



The next day I took a walk around the island, which took about two hours with my dilldallying...but it was lovely! I liked how I could see the other islands and volcanoes around ours - Lombok, Bali, the other Gili Islands, and then around one end you could see nothing but endless ocean. As well, it was very deserted.