Hello Bali

Singapore was all go for four days and we were tired. This was all to plan though because what I had on the itinerary for Bali was just six days of relaxing. We left Singapore in the evening just after dinner and arrived in Bali at midnight. My first impression of Bali wasn't such a good one. As soon as we passed through immigration there were porters waiting for us with all of our bags. They wanted to help us take our bags to our driver but I thought they seemed a bit scammy. Couldn't be a scam though because we hadn't even passed through customs yet, right? Well, I tried to get my bags back just to see what they'd do and they got so pushy about keeping them and "helping" us. We managed to get our bags off of them and lucky we did because when we got outside the airport we saw the big sign displaying porter fees. I know it was probably only chump change but it's not nice getting attacked for our money as soon as we get off the plane.

Our driver took us to our hotel in Sanur, Tropical Bali Hotel, which won the 2010 Traveladvisor Traveller's Choice award. It was so cheap ($40 USD per night) that I decided to book two rooms for me and my folks for three days. That included room service and a daily breakfast served at our rooms. It was no Ritz but for $40 bucks a night it was pretty damn good! The rooms were huge, the room service was good and it was a really quiet area that wasn't infested with too many other tourists. The only thing about it though was that it was not a good place to walk to town from.

Breakfast: Nasi goreng for me and Nuku and bread and toast for mum

The next day, I thought it would be a swell idea to try that walk into town and mum's face says it all.

Bali doesn't feel like the safest place. Mum and Nuku said they thought Bali was like the Islands: shabby tin housing, cows meandering along the road and rubbish everywhere. Mum wasn't particularly thrilled. My parents were already paranoid about organ harvesters and bombers and after getting bombarded by "helpful" porters before we'd even come out of customs at the airport, this wasn't turning out to be the greatest of first impressions. After my experience at the airport, I was absolutely terrified of my money getting stolen and paranoid of there being a scam around every corner. Understand that when I left Japan I was carrying my life over the past two years as well as my last monthly pay and bonus on me in cash. I slept with my two laptops, kindle, psp and two wallets under the blanket and pillow next to me.

During our walk, we stopped at a cafe for lunch where I tried Balinese duck.

After that we took a taxi to a department store which cheered mum up A LOT. We stayed there for a few hours shopping for clothes and even Nuku was on his clothes shopping buzz because everything was so ridiculously cheap. I was actually surprised that the shopping in Bali is actually really good and it reminded me a lot of Thailand.

The next day we decided to take a taxi to Kuta, the most touristy place in Bail. It was a relief that taxis were so cheap because we couldn't be bothered and were probably too scared to do anymore walking. Anyway, Kuta is the party place in Bali where all the youngins go. Very touristy and from what I saw of it the sleazy and seedy side of town. Nuku and I had grand plans of getting some surfing lessons but one look at the beach changed all that.

There was rubbish everywhere. Piles of it! And not only that, but the water was brown and dirty and you could see all the rubbish coming in with the waves. I had this idea that Bali had beautiful beaches but this was just gross and there was no way Nuku and I were getting in that water. That was the first and only beach we went to in Bali. I'm sure there are beautiful beaches somewhere in Bali but we just too grossed out to feel bothered. On top of the ugly beach, every couple of metres someone would come up to see if we wanted to buy something or get surfing lessons which got pretty tiresome.

After we changed our minds about the surfing lessons we went to another department store where mum and I tried Dr Fish. What you do is you put your feet in this bath of water filled with these "Doctor Fish" and sit there for twenty minutes. While you soak, the Garra rufa fish eats the dead skin from your body, leaving the healthy skin underneath to grow. The sucking left a tingling sensation like little electric shocks. It was pretty cool and my feet felt smooth and new afterwards.

After our stay in Sanur, we headed inland to our next hotel in Ubud. On the way we stopped at a temple, a wood workshop, a silver workshop, a gallery, and the Monkey Forest.

When you go into a temple in Bali you have to wear a sarong.

Mum thought we were in an Indiana Jones movie.

Mum didn't like the monkeys.

Our new hotel, Junjungan, was super nice and surrounded by rice fields. The parents were tickled pink. We spent a lot of time here because it was so relaxing and the food wasn't too bad either. Breakfast was usually awesome and always included a fruit platter afterwards. They even had all the staff memorise our names: Miss Danielle, Miss Rowena, and Mr Nuku.

Nuku having trouble trying to get under the Balinese tables

Afternoon tea

Our bedroom

Mum's got the stink spare bed

Rice field view from our balcony

Inland Bali is so much more beautiful than what we saw of the coastal area. Ubud is a huge arts and cultural centre and everywhere we went there always seemed to be some kind of workshop or gallery on the side of the road. And there are rice fields everywhere!

While we were in Ubud we went to some of the markets - they are terrible, with dirty stalls and pushy stall people. We only got a slight taste of them while in Kuta but because we kept shopping in department stores we avoided most of the market touts. In Ubud everywhere we turned there was someone trying to do their best to get our money give us a "good price". It's interesting for the first ten minutes but after a while it drove me nuts. You keep having to haggle prices down, and you can't look at things in stalls because as soon as you show an interest stall owners will get all pushy and and show you other things and offer a good price. You've gotta get used to using your peripherals to look at things and pretend you're not interested. On top of that, you then have the destitute children tugging at your clothes and scrawny mothers holding babies and begging for change. Like Thailand but not as bad. Stall touts drove me mad. Got a few good bargains though but didn't stay for long because it was just frustrating being attacked at every turn.

Although I didn't take any pictures, mum and I also watched this fantastic gamelan performance. Nuku didn't come because he wanted to stay at the hotel and watch the rice grow. Mum and I were lucky enough to watch a concert of the best gamelan group in Bali. Gamelan is a set of strings and percussion instruments that are built, tuned and meant to be played together. Gamelan is amazing to watch. We also got to watch a Balinese dance called legong which was also amazing. I haven't seen mum that impressed since her subway buzz in Singapore.

Other fun things we did in Singapore included a drive around some of Ubud's main attractions. We visited an awesome temple carved out of rock and surrounded by rice paddys, had an interesting experience at a roadside fruit-stall and visited a coffee plantation that sold Luwak coffee - the most expensive coffee in the world.

If you've watched The Bucket List with Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson then you will know what the most expensive coffee in the world is. Kopi Luwak is made from the coffee beans that are eaten, digested, and shat out by an animal the Balinese call a luwak. The luwak looks kind of like a cat and at night, they forage around looking for the best beans to eat. After their stomach has digested the skin around the coffee bean, they poop it out. Kopi luwak farmers collect these droppings and wash them before roasting. Luwak coffee is not as bitter as regular coffee and it is also said to contain hints of chocolate. I tried it, but to tell you the truth I couldn't really taste the difference.

LEFT: Regular roasted coffee beans     TOP RIGHT: Washed, unroasted Luwak coffee beans     BOTTOM RIGHT:  Regular unroasted coffee beans

LEFT: post-shit/pre-wash coffee beans   RIGH: post-shit/post-wash coffee beans

We  also saw some absolutely beautiful rice terraces which was spoiled because of all the street sellers trying to sell us junk.

Mum and I also got two cheap as massages. A half hour leg and foot massage for about four bucks, and a more expensive full-body massage at the hotel. It was mum's first massage and boy did she love it. Look at that post-massage smile.

Mum after the best massage she's ever had

Also, during breakfast on what I thought was our second to last day in Bali I checked our flight itinerary to double check our departure times on the 3rd of March. Lo and behold, I had made a huge mistake and although we were leaving on the 3rd, the ticket meant on the 3rd at midnight which meant today, on the 2nd March/3rd March overlap, not the 3rd March/4th March overlap. Pity really because I had mentally prepared for all the fun things we were going to do in Bali and felt gipped out a whole day. If I hadn't checked it when I did, we could have missed our flight. Woops.

I had another surprise later on in the afternoon while we were eating afternoon tea. As we were waiting for our tea and cake, Nuku pulled out his itinerary and asked me to check it. From Bali, I was travelling to Australia to see Awh, and Nuku and mum were supposed to be going straight back to Auckland. But when I checked Nuku's tickets, it said that they were going to Brisbane which was a huge mistake because they were supposed to be going straight back to Auckland. I was sitting there stressing out and trying to figure out whose booking mistake this was, mine or Nuku's, and trying to think of the most strategic way to tell Nuku that one of us had wasted a lot of money. This problem completely spoiled my delicious apple tart because stress and cake should never be mixed together. It took me about ten minutes to get it that Nuku had changed the tickets as mum's Valentine's present so they could join me and Awh in Australia. Duh. It turned out that everyone knew except me and Awh.

Spoiled afternoon tea

And that was basically Bali. All we did was relax and eat. SO much eating. I had wanted to do a lot of other things like surfing lessons, white water rafting, elephant riding, see Tanah Lot and such but we wasted so much time on relaxing that we didn't have the time to do much else. All good though. Mum and Nuku really enjoyed it. And now we had a visit to see Awh to look forward. What a great holiday.