Luckily, I was traveling with an absolute travel guru, my coworker Lauren (who also has a blog: check her at "Socks and Sunscreen"). She masterminded our whole rigorous itinerary, packed all the things that me and the boys forgot (it was Lauren, me, and 3 boys. All of us work for the same school in Vietnam), and did all of this without biting our heads off too much. Maybe a slight nibble on like day 7, when all of us were sitting at the same gate as far away from each other as possible staring into our Kindles. I was probably the snippiest of anyone, if I'm being honest.
So about the trip: We flew into Denpasar, Bali, stayed in Ubud for 2 nights, then went to Padangbai for one night, then Gili Trawangan for 2 nights, then back to Padangbai for one night, then to Seminyak for 2 nights, and then home.
Ubud:
Ubud is beautiful and extremely Western. This might bother people coming straight from Europe, Australia, or the US who are looking for that authentic travelriffic experience but it was a breath of fresh air for me coming from Saigon. Literally a breath of fresh air. The air is so clean and fragrant in Bali, what with everyone making offerings with incense on a near constant basis and while there are plenty of motorbikes, it is nothing compared to Vietnam.
The first night:
We stayed at In Da Lodge hostel, which had kind of a party vibe and this beachy/bohemian aesthetic to it. We were holed up in a bungalow thing. Lauren and I shared a bed upstairs, the boys bunked up downstairs.
The first day, we wandered out into the main drag of Ubud to hunt down some Indonesian food (a tall order, that, since the local places are nestled between Rip/Curls, sushi restaurants, and Pandora bracelet stores). We bought the first of many large Bintangs (local beer of Indonesia) and chowed down on some chicken satay, peanut sauce, and sauteed morning glory. Afterwards, we bought more Bintangs at a Circle K and played Kings at the hostel with some drunk backpacking German who loved boasting about all the kinky sex he's had. We continued drinking at a bar in downtown Ubud until it closed at about 2 am. So basically, the usual.
The Rice Terrace
The following day was the most jam-packed day of my entire life. After breakfast, we hired a driver to take us around Ubud. We began with a rice terrace, which was pretty much one big photo op. Actually, I take this back. EVERYWHERE in Ubud was one big photo op. Apologies if I sound bitter, but it almost felt as if everyone had to prove that they had been on vacation by having mini photoshoots every 15 feet. The rice terrace (pictured below) was extraordinarily beautiful, and we were there during a very bright and sunny part of the day.
After this, we headed to a coffee plantation known for "Luwak coffee." This is that crazy-expensive coffee that is made from beans collected from civet poop. This particular plantation called the special coffee "Cat-poo-chino." Civets, you see, are these little cat-weasle looking animals that eat only the ripest coffee cherries. The tour included showing us the coffee plant, drying the beans, roasting the beans, grinding them up. We got to see "example" civets in cages (see below) although the tour guide informed us that the real coffee-producing civets happily roamed free shitting out only the best coffee beans while workers dutifully tracked them and picked through their droppings. At the time, I accepted it, but after some reflection and some Googling, there is no way in hell that's true. Instead, I'm thinking the harvesting is more like a bunch of poor, force-fed civets packed into cages.
While I was still enjoying my blissful ignorance of the poo-prisoners, though, I quite liked the coffee plantation. Our tour guide was this lithe, well-spoken local woman who explained the merits of all the teas and coffees in that pleasant and understandable Bahasa accent. We got to sample various teas and coffees from the plantation and our tour guide gave us cheeky explanations of what effect it could have on the body. (One was supposed to be an aphrodisiac-- "make mama happy, make papa happier" she says)
Temple Spotting:
After the coffee plantation, we went on an aggressive Temple-hunting expedition. We saw three in a row. If you've ever done the temple touring-thing, you know that eventually they all kind of look the same. They're beautiful, they feel cleansing and hallowed, but yeah after 2, you start to feel like you saw them all. Even the entrance with all the vendors trying to sell you sarongs, little metal elephants and enormous wooden penis bottle openers feels the same.
All three temples cost about 15,000 rupiah to enter, require modest dress and/or a sarong, and in general they have weird signs about not coming in and touching everything if you happen to be on your period. They were all extraordinarily beautiful and harmoniously incorporated into the jungle landscape, but I don't have much else to say about them. As I said before, they were a huge photo op. There were lots of Instagram-model wannabe types and travel bloggers shooting and reshooting everywhere. Our temple-touring took about 4 hours, so I'm really not giving them enough room in this blog, but they really did all kind of run together for me, although I enjoyed them at the time. Below are some photos from the temples:
After the temples, we were all pretty sweaty and worn out so our driver took us to a waterfall. It was pretty beautiful, but like the rest of Ubud, packed with people taking photos of themselves, except this time, the waterfall gave everyone a chance to be in bikinis instead of modest dress.
Balinese Fire Dance:
While we were in the parking lot at the waterfall, our driver asked us if we were interested in seeing a traditional Balinese fire dance. I wasn't particularly interested, because I was tired and cranky, but everyone else was, so I said "yeah sure! let's go!" I am glad we went, because it was one of the coolest parts of Ubud for me. The performance was held at this ampitheater-type thing and it was well-attended by what appeared to be a local middle school on a field trip. Lauren and I smiled and waved at the kids, which turned into an impromptu selfie-palooza as all the children lined up to take photos with us. This went on for a good 10 minutes.
The performance itself was unlike anything I've ever seen before. It was this style called Kecak, which is a choir of men providing the music for the performance. They didn't sing words, but rather these kind of rhythmic "kek-kek-kek" sounds that crescendoed and changed depending on the actions of the dancers. The dancers in the performance did this kind of weird, isolated tutting. They had such garish costumes that it was kind of difficult to tell what they were supposed to be, even though I had the whole story written out for me in English on the handy tourist pamphlet. All of it was very symbolic, so naturally as a very literally-minded American I was lost. The "fire" part of the dance came at the end, where a man dressed up in a horse costume trampled through an accelerant-produced fire with bare feet and hands. Our driver was very convinced that he was given this special ability supernaturally. As a fire-dancer myself, I am less convinced.
Mt. Batur
As you're reading this, please keep in mind that we have done everything I just wrote about IN ONE DAY. That's a lot. It was exhausting. So I found it extremely ambitious that the next morning, Lauren proposed that we do a sunrise hike up Mt. Batur, a volcano an hour away. I found it absolutely ludicrous that by "next morning" we would actually be leaving the hostel at 2 am. But here we are, and I wasn't about to be the only one not to do the hike. And looking back, I am SO glad that I did it. Thank you, Lauren, for the positive peer pressure.
So, at the ass crack of not-even-dawn, we are shuffling into a van. Our driver takes us to a different hostel where we drink some shit coffee (not civet-shit coffee, just bad coffee) and eat a banana pancake each. Then we pack back into the van and drive an hour to the base of Mt. Batur where we meet our guide and hit the bathroom one more time. I surprised, at this point, by how many people were going on this hike. The whole parking lot was full of people.
We meet our guide, he gives us some flashlights, and we head off into the night. The beginning of the hill was mostly this soft powdery dirt, but it quickly turned to a steeper climb with rough volcanic rock. The going was tricky, with crumbling rock everywhere, and the climb was exasperated by out-of-shape dumbasses who would inexplicably cut in front of our group only to slowly shuffle up the hill. At this point, I was very cranky and I always get a bit one-uppy about fitness, so I insisted on traveling as quickly as possible with no breaks. (I didn't get my way, our guide forced us to stop about 5 times in 2 hours)
We did reach the top, though, with plenty of time to spare before sunrise. The summit is vast enough that it absorbed the number of hikers very well, so it didn't feel too congested. Our guide rustled up some coffee and banana sandwiches for us while we found our spot to watch the sunrise. The sunrise was absolutely stunning, with little wispy clouds perfectly shrouding the evidence of civilization down below.
Right as the sun came out, so did the monkeys. They're smart little jerks. They set about climbing the other tourists and ripping into backpacks and grabbing go-pros. I desperately wanted one to crawl on me so I could take a selfie with it, but alas, it was not meant to be.
After everyone took all the photos their little memory cards could hold, we hiked back down the mountain. We were back at our hostel by 10 am, and check out was at 11.
