Indonesia: 3 weeks Bali

4th April - 25th Bali

On the 4th of April we left Jogjakarta to travel to Bali. We really needed some time outside the city. We took a first class train to Probolingoo (9 hours) where we stayed one night. We should have skipped Probolinggo as we did not really like that place…(most tourist only stay here to travel further to Mt Bromo but we skipped that as well. We had seen enough volcano activities ;)). The next day we took a normal train (economy class) to Banybangi to cross over by ferry to Bali.

First thing we learned in Bali: The bus leaves when it is full (which took 2 hours and not 20 minutes as promised LOL.)

Where did we go and what did we do in Bali?

Pulukan (6th April)

• Cute litte surf guesthouse next to the beach. If you do not want to be at a tourist spot and you want to surf – this is the spot (we did not surf haha but we saw a lot of surfers). Dikaloah Surf camp (we recommend that place).

Tanah Lot (7th April)

• Two 12 years old looking young men took us to Tanah Lot by car. Our hotel was in the middle of a tourist arena, 300 m away from the Hindu temple Tanah Lot (we had to pay entry to come to our hotel, so we were already fed up just to get to our hotel).

• The Tanah Lot temple is really nice to see. Great sport there: try to take a picture with no tourist on it … won’t happen.

• We had a luxury dinner at an expensive resort (expensive for here - still cheap compared what are used to) next to the temple as we could only get a rip off taxi to get out of there. Great food and a great glass of wine (yes, only one as good wine is very expensive in Bali)!

• We left after one day (although we paid for 2 nights) as the only positive thing about the hotel was its pool.

Canggu (8th April – 11th April)

• It took us a while to get a taxi for a normal price (they refused to let us step in to our grab taxi for 40.000 RP but wanted to force us to take a rip off taxi for 200.000 RP! Grab is forbidden in the tourist areas. So after 10 min of jalan jalan – walking – the rip off taxi came after us and took us to Canggu for a normal price). This whole discussing about prices in taxis is starting to get on our nerves.

• The first night we stayed in a little very nice guesthouse with the best shower so far (Filadelfia Guesthouse), we had some Bintangs at the beach in the rain and a great dinner with another glass of wine at Macan restaurant. We had a very interesting conversation with a Hindu about his religion late in the evening in a different bar.

• The next 2 days we stayed at KOA d’Surf (mwah) and at a very nice beach villa (Villa Anginsepoi) for a very good price. We had some problems with our Agoda bookings as we used Ricks creditcard for 2 different accounts …did not think about that being a problem…well, it is. Luckily that problem ended in an upgrade at the beach villa as our booking did not come through in the first place so we get the presidential suite. Talking about kharma ;)

• We spent a lot of time at the beach and tried some surfing (we suck big times).

• BTW Congrats for everyone who ran the marathon in Rotterdam on the 9th april!

Ubud (11th – 13th April)

• We rent a scooter for the next 2 weeks and left off to Ubud to treat ourselves with a honeymoon package for 2 days in a great hotel close to Ubud. 2,5 hours on one scooter with backpacks is a challenge.

• The hotel (Kampung Resort) was just wonderful! They prepared a bath full with roses, a bottle of wine, a couple massage and we will get a romantic candle light dinner by the pool the next day … I will come back to that again. I cried a little because it was so overwhelming.

• The next day we did a tourist tour on our scooter and went to the mountain for the view, visited Tirta Empul (water temple) and the Gunug Kawi (a hindu temple that was build in the 11th century). Standard sentence this day: “Tidak, we already have a Sarong.”

• Our romantic dinner did not go through as it started to pour exactly at 7pm when we were supposed to have our candle light dinner. We managed to take one picture of or table with all the candles… forget about what I have said about Kharma before haha.

• We had 2 great massages in Ubud but did not see the markets or the center of Ubud. Too busy …

Sidemen (13th – 15th April)

• Great hotel (Sawah Inda Villa) in the rice fields in the hills.

• We took a very cool rafting tour with Yoga our rafting master on the Telega Waja River. The river and its surroundings were gorgeous. The tour was really cool and we had a lot of fun (waterfights and Boom Boom).

• Rick fell asleep during a nice massage in between the rice fields.

• Restaurant to go to: Warung Damuh (picture time again ;))…buleeeeeee!

Alampura 15th - 16th April

• We went here as there is a catholic church and I wanted to go to church on the Sunday (Eastern).

• Stayed at Virgin beach (bulee beach).

• We saw the Kinungan Ceremony at the beach (the spirits that came down on silence day leave their relatives again on that day)

• We went to church on Sunday. Happy Eastern!

Amed 16th - 17th

• Beautiful scooter ride through the mountains to Amed (close to Kubu).

• Nice snorkling village. Rick saw Nemo and Dory. Everyone was down there.

• We stayed at Pazzo Hotel and had a great dinner at Green Coco Warung (or something like that).

Gili Air 17th – 20th April

• At 10 am we went by ferry to Gili Air (the smallest of the islands). The hotel arranged the tickets and we could leave our scooters there as there is only jalan jalan on the Gili's (you can rent a bike or take the horse carriage).

• We love our hotel Balengku Homestay ("Welcome to Balengku Homestay!")

• There are so many nice restaurants and bars here. It is paradise (..unfortunately it is pretty expensive for Bali but YOLO).

• We did a snorkling tour (me with hangover from all the cocktails) with a boat and saw turtles, Nemo, Dory and the rest of the crew!! Unfortunately the corals are all dead :(

• We had Mexican and Italian food (Pizza) and another glass of wine.

• On our last day on Gili we do not anything and will just relax somewhere in the shade (which is easy to find today as it is cloudy).

Tomorrow we will leave the Gili’s and will travel back to Canggu where will take the plane on 25th april to Kuala Lumpur (we have to give back our scooter there).

PS. Rick got a cold and is very “zielig” (men flue ;)…).