The Adventures of Jim & Rhonda

Well, we are just loving Bali!

Ubud was fantastic. We ended up staying 4 nights in our lovely little cottage at Sania House.

A couple days were just lazing about, doing some Christmas shopping and lounging by the pool. However, on Sunday we took a full day eco tour/ mountain biking tour which was just wonderful.

We first headed about 45minutes north of Ubud to the Batur volcano for breakfast at a restaurant on the rim of the crater. This is still an active volcano, as are a few others on the island, and last blew in 1973. The BIG eruption that caused the huge crater, however, was from 1917.

After breakfast we headed to an eco-tour farm to see some of the thousands of culinary and medicinal plants that are grown in Bali as well as where they were making coffee. Jim was in heaven since we’d only been drinking tea and nescafe for most of the last month! The balinese coffee is very good although they grow so little they really never export any to speak of.

Then, on to our bikes. The tour is designed to be easy so is basically 25km of an easy level or downhill road. We stopped a couple of times to see some boys handcarving wooden buddha statues for export and for a snack and went through dozens of small villages and compounds. We stopped at one to walk through it so our guide, Darma, could explain the Balinese way of life. It’s quite a fascinating culture where all families live in a compound. Each family has one house for as many of their family members as exist to live. Darma, for instance, lived in a 3room house with his parents, wife and children. The community is all important and even though young people can leave home for education, etc they are expected to return at some point and the community leaders can decide how long they can stay away. Each compound has it’s own temple and then there is the village temple as well. Offerings to the Hindu gods (Bali is a majority of Hindu) are made at least once a day and sometimes more and the women spend hours each day crafting small plates out of banana leaves on which to place the offerings of fruits, rice, and flowers with an incense stick or two burning on top. This happens all over the island, even in a touristic city such as Kuta.

One very interesting thing about Balinese is that the YOUNGEST son is the one who is obligated to stay home and take care of continuing the family line and taking care of the parents whereas most western countries, of course, the oldest is considered the “heir” if you will. Darma, our guide, was the youngest so he lived in the compound with his parents and his two older brothers were making money on Java so they could start their own compound, otherwise they too would have to live in the same 3 room house with the rest of the family.

After the compound visit we continued through more villages, rice paddies, etc. It was absolutely unbelievable to be slowly breezing along through such remarkable scenery, smelling the flowers, fruit and incense, and high-fiving all of the children who ran out to greet us with great excitement. The Balinese people are incredibly friendly and anxious for visitors since tourism is down by a huge percentage after the bombings of the last few years. It has greatly affected their lifestyle in the towns. However, I will say in the villages we went through they kept right on as they always have. Life appears to be quite hard although I think there must be a reduction of some of our western stresses to not worry about where you’re going to live or who will take care of you when you’re old because that is pre-determined.

Just as we were finishing  our bike ride we had to pedel across a bridge over a dam and down a small hill and Jim’s front tire completely collapsed sending him head over tail down the hill!!! Luckily, since it’s rainy season the ground was quite soft and other than a sore neck for a couple of days he is fine. We were sure I would be the one to crash since I’m not a very experienced bike rider but it was all him.

A lovely lunch followed at the company’s private restaurant with sticky rice, crispy duck, crispy chicken, tempeh, fried tofu, noodle salad, bok choy & spinach salad and fruit for desert. They have really nice food here, spicy but not so hot it burns your tongue off!

Anyone interested in this tour: It’s called PT. Bali Budaya Tours and the phone number is 0361 975557. Email is bulanindah@dps.centrin.net.id

There is another company trying to copy their program but we heard it wasn’t as good of a day so make sure which company you really book with. If in doubt ask for Darma as a guide. He was extremely informative.

We got back into Ubud at about 3:30pm and had time to shower before we headed off to our appointment with Lionk at Creative Tattoo. We had both been wanting to get a tattoo to symbolize this trip and he is a great artist who has been written up in quite a few magazines. We had decided on the Maori tribes fishhook which means life well lived and travel over water. I got mine on my left ankle and Jim on his right shoulder and we are thrilled with the result. After dinner we were certainly ready for bed after that adventurous day!

We got all of our Christmas shopping done in Ubud and shipped home along with still more things we realized we don’t need here. We’re reducing our packs more and more as we find out what we’re really using and what we just were packing around.

Tuesday we headed north, again by taxi, to Lovina. The drive was almost 3 hrs of breathtaking beauty. This is such an incredibly lush countryside! It is HOT in Lovina, perhaps even hotter than in Kuta. We’re literally melting as sunscreen, etc just slides right off your skin! It’s a nice , very laid back town that has really been hit very hard by the lack of tourists. We are staying at Suma House in another beautiful cottage with lots of carved wood, 4 poster bed and a veranda. Our room is HUGE and since they’re so slow the owner started out asking 60euro/night and ended up at $25USD a night. Quite a difference! There is a nice pool & it’s right on the beach. The beaches up here are black sand and the water is extremely mellow! Unfortunately, with fresh tattoos we can’t get in for another day or so!

We’re spending 4 nights here as well and then heading  around the east side of the island to Amed or possibly all the way to Candidasa or Padangbai to spend Thanksgiving and then have a flight to Singapore on 23November.

Internet connections here are few and far between so will publish again as soon as possible.

Cheers – Jim & Rhonda

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 13th, 2007 at 11:56 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.