Hi Everybody!
Yes, already a new article 😉 Not too bad isn’t it?
You might know that I left Australia on Sunday March 4th. I took off around 7 pm and landed 4h30 later in Bali. No sooner out of the airport I had to deal with all the taxi drivers. It’s pretty crazy how they all pounce on you! If you’re not used to it, it’s really intrusive and stressful. From then on, you have to be prepared to bargain for everything all the time to get the right price. After some discussion, the 4th guy gave in for a correct price.
I arrived at my hostel 30min later. It was located in Denpasar, 10kms away from the airport. During the taxi trip, I couldn’t help myself noticing that the rules on the road are obviously not the same over here! Marion and Alizée, a friend of her, were waiting for me at the hostel. Marion had booked a room for both of us in a decent place.
The next day, after a fried rice breakfast and I little swim (it’s bound to be over here!), we were off to Ubud, a well-known place in Bali. From Denpasar to Ubud, 1h of taxi cost about 9/10€! Ubud is really crowded, mainly tourists. There are shops and restaurants everywhere. When you walk around, you realize that everything is made up for the tourism. The locals understood that very well and if they are not shop tenants, they are taxi drivers. You can hear the funny words “Yes, please, taxi” at every corner!
We had booked a guesthouse which surprisingly appeared to be a really nice place considering the price we paid. We had a welcome cocktail, meals were brought to our room and the staff was flawless.
The following day, we went for a walk around the city and visited the Sacred Monkey Forest, a crab-eating macaque nature reserve. It was pretty exciting to observe monkeys on the loose! They are wandering in the city center as well, robbing the distracted tourists.
What about the food you would ask. You know I am a foodie guy, right? If you like Asian food, get over here, the food is nice and cheap! A simple meal is about 3€. Thar said you can get sick of it rather quickly. To make it simple, it’s basically always noodles or rice with eggs, chicken or vegetables.
The next day, we went to the famous rice terraces in Tegallalang and tasted some coffees in a nearby coffee farm. It was such an amazing feeling to rediscover the taste of a real coffee. By real coffee, I mean black without cream or sugar. Among many flavored teas and coffees, I tried the famous Luwak coffee, a coffee prepared with digested coffee beans. The Asian palm cive is used to eating the coffee beans. The digestive process alters the composition of the coffee cherries giving the coffee a peculiar taste. It seems to be the most expensive coffee.
We were supposed to go to Lovina beach with a taxi on Wednesday afternoon but in the end, we decided to rent two scooters for the 5 next days. It turned out to be an amazing idea. It was a real pleasure to travel through Bali by scooter. The first trip from Ubud to Lovina took us 2h30. We ended up driving in the dark. That night we met a fisherman at the hostel. He is used to taking people on his boat to show them the dolphins and brought them to some snorkeling spots.
On the first day in Lovina, we went to visit Brahma vihara arama, a temple 10km West of Lovina Beach. Unfortunately for us it rained the whole day that day. Not too far from this temple is a hot spring where we spent few hours bathing in the rain.
The day after, we did a small boat trip with the fisherman we had met at the hostel. We saw some dolphins and did a bit of snorkeling. The guy took advantage of the opportunity to fish. He was using a simple line tied to his foot with a dozen of hooks. Within a couple of minutes, he caught a full bucket of fish, pretty crazy!
Later on that same day, we left Lovina for a small town at the foot of the Mount Batur, an old volcano. The hostel there, the Blacklava, was located in the middle of nowhere. I must admit that I was really surprised to find the hostel there. We met a friendly French couple who were traveling across Asia for about 6 months. We exchanged some tips of our past travels and learned from their experience of Myanmar. They told us Myanmar was so far their favorite Asian country. I can’t wait to see that!
On Saturday morning, we had booked a hike to climb the Mount Batur with a guide. Initially I had considered doing it by myself, unfortunately, the locals don’t authorize tourists to go up on their own, it would be missing an opportunity to rip them off once again. That said, even if the hike didn’t make up for the price, we enjoyed an amazing sunrise from the top. The ascension, on the other hand, was far from being nice, there was such a crowd that we had to follow a line of about 100 people without mentioning the taxi motorcycles doing round trips to the top for the laziest of us. Such a bunch of barbarians! We were back downhill around 10 am and spent the rest of the day chilling at the hostel.
We decided to head off back to Ubud on Sunday morning around midday. We had to drop the scooters and take a boat to Nusa Penida, a small island south-east of Bali the next morning. The most economic (but the longest) way to go there is to take the public ferry in Padang Bai. After a shuttle ride from our hotel in Ubud, we boarded the ferry around 11 am. It took us about 2h to get to the island. Once arrived, we rent a scooter to one of the many guys waiting on the dock. They are all there to leap on the travelers asking them if they need a scooter or a taxi. I stayed 2 days on the island. It was a bit short to discover everything but I had the time to visit some of the wonderful places around the island. By the way, I edited a small video with the few aerial shots we made with Marion.
I left Nusa Penida on Wednesday morning to go back to Padang Bai. I left Marion as well. She had planned to stay some more days on the island.
Back in Padang Bai, I darted to the post office. I had to lighten my bag before going to Thailand. I managed to send about 6kg of my stuff back to France (tent, sleeping bag, solar panel, and two jeans). It was such a relief to walk out of the post office so light 🙂
That done, I jumped on a shuttle bus to the airport. It took me 2h hours to get there. I arrived at 4 pm for a flight scheduled… at 1 am:-/
So here I am now, finalizing this article at the airport. I will be in Thailand in a few hours to meet Lucile and start the next adventure! 😉
As usual, you will find the link to the album below.
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