Bali in December, Pt.1

Finally I managed to look through the Bali pictures and pick the best of them to put them on my blog. In total I have been 12 days on Bali together with my father. Sounds like a long time for a small island? - Your are wrong! Bali is so diverse and there is so much to see. We could just get a rough overview of maybe half the island in that time. We both decided to come back some time anyway. Bali is absolutely awesome!
The nature: Volcanoes, rain forest, coral reefs, rivers, lakes, rice fields and so on...
The people: Always smiling at you, children even cheering, very courteous ... one of the friendliest places I have ever been.
The culture: Thousands (not exaggerated) of temples of all kinds, interesting stories and legends and a lot of handicrafts!

The first five days we stayed in the Bali Hyatt in Sanur. Pretty decent hotel with everything you need and even more. The area there is less crowed and much more quiet than Kuta - definitely preferable for me. At first we did some day trips to get to know the area a bit. The first one was snorkeling trip to Nusa Lembongan. It was a pretty amazing place. The first snorkeling spot was called Manta Bay and you could actually see 2m big manta rays swimming gracefully just below you in the sea. Later we went to a coral reef with a lot of colorful fish. We were feeding them with some bread, like that we were sometimes surrounded by a whole swarm of fish. We met a German guy with an underwater camera there as well - I hope I can show you some underwater pictures soon. There were two Japanese students with us on the boat as well - just if you wonder who those two pretty girls besides me are... ;-) Unfortunately I haven't met them another time.

The next trip was to Kuta, the tourism and party center of Bali. Probably you can have fun there in the evening and party in the clubs there. But walking around in the streets there we felt rather like in Spain or on Mallorca - almost only tourist and very few locals. At first we tried to relax a bit on the beach. But the merchants who try to sell you all that cheap crap are like a pest there. As soon as you stop walking you are surrounded by a whole bunch of them. Eventually we fled and and took a walk through the town. I think the whole place is one big market - in every house you can buy souvenirs and other stuff. Unfortunately the traffic is really annoying. Even though it was low season there was one big traffic jam in Kuta - getting in and out by car requires a lot of patience. We concluded the day watching the famous sunset in Kuta. I have seen more impressive sunsets - but the weather was not optimal. My overall judgment is: If you don't go to Kuta you won't miss much - there are a lot nicer places on Bali.

Our next trip was maybe the most exhausting one but it was definitely among the most amazing ones as well: An early morning hike on the Mount Batur. Early morning means getting up at 2am, starting the hike at around 4am and being on top of the volcano at 6.30am - just before the sunrise. The hike was - despite not being very long - quite challenging. In the beginning it was really pitch black. We had some small torchlights but you couldn't really see where you placed your steps. The ground was a bit rough as well - loose stones and gravel - so we were rather stumbling up the mountain. But as soon as we saw the view from the top we know that it was worth it. Especially just before sunrise the sky changed its color every few seconds, from dark blue to red to orange to purple to yellow (not sure about the order but the colors were there). Just after sunrise a lot of monkeys suddenly appeared and ran all over the place. They made some nice models for our pictures.

After climbing down Mt. Batur we had a short stop in the Monkey Forest close to Ubud. This place has some crazy monkeys! You can buy bananas at the entrance and feed them - but beware, as soon as they realize that you have bananas they will jump on you and try to get the food. Hiding food in a bag is a bad idea - they will smell it and won't leave you until they are convinced that there is no food left. Apart from that they are quite peaceful. If you don't threat them they wont harm you. Actually it is a lot of fun playing with the monkeys.