A Re-Introduction to Asia: Bali and Beyond

Welcome to an exciting new edition of my esteemed travel blog. Esteemed by me because I bloody love it. Flying in to Denpasar airport, which incidentally is no where near Denpasar, I got to Kuta beach. Kuta is what Khao San road in Bangkok is to Indonesia. Chock full of tourists piled up on beaches, wearing t-shirts with the Indonesian beer on it, buying all sorts of crap from the markets ranging from postcards to massive wooden penis shaped bottle openers. While Kuta lacks any sort of charm it was a useful re-introduction to South East Asia; there are a lot of tourists who roam these places on their holidays and these are the places to stay clear of! On the other hand, the Westernised Indonesian food was delicious and I had a good wander along the beach front.

From Kuta I selected to go North to Ubud. Famed for being the cultural heart of Bali and it was very apparent that we were out of the tourist center. Ubud is a very small town built up over the years around what they dub the 'Holy Monkey Forest Sanctuary'. I was quite dubious when I went to visit the monkey forest being as it is plastered over all the tourist pamphlets and pictures of monkeys all over the place didn't seem likely. I was proved very wrong, however. There were monkeys everywhere! And cheeky bastards they are too! If you have any food on you they know about it and they want it. It was really good fun and the complex/forest was surprisingly big and full of mini-temples and waterfalls.

Ubud market was another fascinating experience. Being as I have seen many markets it all seems a bit samey, especially as the markets all sell the same crap all over SE Asia. Again, I was proved wrong in Ubud's market. It was a crazy place with very narrow pathways packed with stalls, then suddenly you find you've gone up 2 flights of stairs and are looking over the the multi-leveled mayhem below all out in the open. Obviously the sellers are still as pushy as the all other Asian markets.

We decided the best way to see places around Ubud was by use of a rental motorbike. It was brilliant being back on bikes again, especially as we got lost a couple of times as well! Our destination was Gunung Kawi, but we had more fun on the bikes driving on roads through dense forest that would suddenly open up to huge rice terraces. Gunung Kawi was hyped up a lot in the Lonely Planet as one of Bali's top sights. It was interesting seeing the temple that wasn't really a temple. It was a bunch of 20' shrines cut into the wall along a valley and was actually quite impressive.

Following day we opted for a visit to one of the volcano's for a night time trek. We opted for Mt. Batur. We had a guide, Madé. He was a really funny little man and he had a driver take us to the base of the mountain, which he couldn't find. We asked him if we were lost and his reply was "Um, yes. We are a little bit lost" and he was distraught that we might be unhappy. We thought it was hilarious that we couldn't find the giant mountain in front of us! Eventually he got going in the right direction and we started to ascend the mountain. The walk in the dark was quite tough and mostly uneventful. That was until we heard music coming from somewhere. Some sort of electro, rave stuff. Next thing I know we are walking through a rave full of drugged up, zombie looking hippies at 4am with pounding rave music in our ears! At first it was funny and very surreal but I was actually quite annoyed at the whole thing, mostly the music kind of messed up the ambiance of the place. It took about an hour and a half to get to the top and it was still dark. Mt. Batur is some 1700 meters above sea level and being as it is a volcano we were sat by the giant crater that dropped 100 meters below us. As it got a bit lighter we could see the steam rising from the crater and in some places you can feel the heat coming out of crevices in the rock. Just about when the sun came up the whole place was suddenly swarming with wild monkeys! The sunrise was impressive even thought it was quite cloudy. And with the light and the mist around the volcano it looked stunning! It took an hour to get back down and when we met up with Madé he wanted to show us more.

Madé took us to a plantation of coffee, chocolate and various fruits. We tried a few different things and watched them grind the coffee into powder to be packaged and sold. Bali coffee is great! He also took us to a really good view from the top of a set of rice terraces where we got some very postcard-esque pictures.

The following morning we left for Lovina at the north coast of Bali. On the way there we stopped at Bali's biggest waterfall, the Gitgit waterfall. There was a lot of rain around the mountains and because of that the waterfall was a raging torrent and some of the paths incredibly slippery. I couldn't get many good pictures because of the rain but it was quite a sight! Lovina is a nice place but the beach isn't too great. It is made up of black sand, presumably because of the volcanic rock. Lovina is very quiet but we still found a bar with some cheap cocktails and a local band. On one morning we went out to see the famous Lovina dolphins. The boat that took us out to sea was basically a canoe with a motor on the back and some poles out to the side to keep it balanced. When we got far enough out to sea it was a little disappointing to see that there were about 100 other boats doing likewise. It made the dolphin watching experience a bit less magical since as soon as someone spotted any dolphins, all the boats suddenly hurtle towards them. We still saw a fair number of them so I was happy enough!

We got a minibus back to Kuta and stayed in possibly the worst guest house I have ever seen! We stayed in Kuta a couple more days for Briony's birthday. It was a funny night in a club that advertised a 'snow party' but it was a lot more like a rain party. I thought there must have been a fire or something with the water coming down from the ceiling! Needless to say we were all soaking wet and very drunk!

We left Kuta for Gilimanuk to get the ferry across to Java. The intention was to go to another volcano, Mt Bromo, but when we got to the town near there the rain was so bad that all the roads were completely flooded. It didn't stop people trying to drive almost waist deep through it on there motorbikes, until of course the motorbikes stopped working! So we cut out losses and headed for the next major city, Surabaya. Surabaya is a stark contrast to Kuta. We didn't see a single white person the entire time we were there! It also meant no western restaurants so we had lots of delicious street food. I watched the FA Cup final in a really expensive hotel and since the place we were staying in was such a dive it was quite nice pretending to be rich!! The hotel we were staying in doesn't have a shower, just a trough of cold water and a small bucket.

Catching the train from Surabaya to Yogyakarta (or Jogja as it's called here) was somewhat reminiscent of the train rides in China. The 'ekonomie' class meant little leg space, lots of people goggling at us, tons of hawkers walking up and down the train and of course a very lengthy ride! It was worth it for the price - under 2 pounds for a 9 hour ride - but there's no way I could do that overnight. I am in Jogja now and it's a really nice city from what I have seen so far.

Looking forward to the rest of Indonesia and beyond.