Bali in December, Pt.2

After spending the first few days in the hotel in Sanur we did a four day round trip through the island. The round trip was already booked from Germany so we did not have to care about anything - guide, driver, accommodation, ... everything was organized. Normally this round trip is organized for at least 8 people but since it was low season we were the only two who wanted to do it. Since everything was already booked and payed they made an exception and did the tour anyway - with a guide and a driver for just the two of us. You can't have it any better!

The first two days we enjoyed the tour in a VW "bucket car" (Kübelwagen). The feeling was really unique. When the weather was nice (most of the time it actually was) we could ride with open roof and without windows - so we felt really close to the island and the people, much better than looking through a glass pane. Our driver knew all the small roads and villages, so we could see parts of the island that the usual tourists don't see: small villages, remote rice fields, many friendly and cheering people and a lot of jungle.

On the first day we made it from the south of the island to roughly the middle West of the island. There were a lot of small hills between small valleys with small creeks. This is a perfect area for rice terraces and we saw plenty of them. The green of the rice terraces is absolutely incredible - its acutally greener then green, literally as green as green can be. :-) But it is kind of hard to caputure it with a camera - a monitor will probably not be able to display that colour anyway. We made a lot of stops (we could of cours stop whenever we wanted to) and two little hikes/walks in the rice fields and a bit through the jungle. We saw all kinds of tropical fruits (eg. a Jack Fruit, the biggest fruit in the world; you can see it in the picture) - many of them I didn't even know before. We made a short stop at a brick yard as well - the swastika is by the way a religious symbol in Hinduism. Finally having arrived in our nice accommodation we experimented a bit with flash and tripod...

On the second day we made our way up north all the way to Lovina. In this part Bali is very mountainous and we could see some high volcanoes with steep slopes. The roads and the villages got smaller - unfortunately the weather was not optimal. But some of the views were still breathtaking. We could see the traditional way of ploughing the rice fields, more friendly Balinese people and a lot of smaller and bigger temples. Having arrived in Lovina we felt like coming back from nature and wilderness to civilization and tourism. We stayed in a nice bungalow, but it was not as cozy and unique as the last place. Just before sun set we had a bath in the sea... where we lost our key on the beach... Fortunately we could get a spare key at the reception and we found the key in the next morning.

For the next day we booked dolphin watching in the early morning. We had to get up really early to start the trip in the traditional boat before sunrise. Unfortunately in reality it was not as calm and quiet as it seems in the two pictures. It was rather dolphin chasing than dolphin watching. There were at least 30 boats on the sea and whenever somebody spotted a group of the poor dolphins all the boats would race there at full throttle. I think there are better places if you really want to see dolphins... At least we got a really great breakfast when we came back to our guest house.
From that day on we were travelling in a mini bus - it is more convenient for longer distances but the atmosphere is not as nice as in the small VW. At first we went East along the coast, where we stopped at a nice temple. Then we turned South and made our way up in the mountains again. That day the weather was quite cloudy and it rained several times - so we did not have the best view for the Gunung Agung, the highest volcano on Bali.
The accommodation for the night was a very small place in a tiny village. I believe it was the only guest house in the village and we were the only guests there. So there was actually nothing to do after our dinner. We went for a short walk in the village anyway. The streets were quite dark and my father was a bit scared about some youngsters lurking around there - but I assured him that Bali was completely safe. When we finally came back to our place the gate was locked, apparently our host though that we already went to sleep. We were standing a bit helpless in front of the gate when one of the youngsters approached us. He was actually asking if he could help us. We explained him our situation and the young guy would just jump over the wall of the guest house and tell our host to open the gate. I guess we would have managed that by ourselves as well but this perfectly shows how courteous and helpful the Balinese are.

On the last day we made our way back along the coast to our hotel in Sanur, but not before doing some proper river rafting. The rafting was really great. Again we had the raft for us alone, with a guide/instructor of course. Once we found out how to steer and paddle optimally we were overtaking all the other boats. In total it was a 14 km trip which took roughly two hours. In the end our arm felt actually a bit soar...
The last stops were in some small wood and stone carving shops. The area around Ubud is famous for its handicrafts. All along the road you could see shops with carvings, pictures, baskets, pottery and all those things. We bought two nice wood carvings as souvenirs.

The last picture is a portrait of our superb guide Mariarta. He was with us for the for days and he was really great. He could tell us a lot about the Balinese culture and lifestyle. Apart from that I think he knew every single tropical plant or fruit. Especially great were the legends and stories about the ancient Bali he told us from time to time. He made this round trip a unique and unforgettable experience!