Bali

From Mt. Bromo we took a big tour bus to Bali. The ride was about 12 hours to Denpasar, luckily we planned to get off half way between the ferry and Denpasar reducing our trip time to 10ish hours. So we got off and stayed at a little surfing spot.

See Laurel’s take on our Bali trip at http://beyondboulder.wordpress.com/2009/09/11/golden-week-part-3-bali/.

This is Medewi beach. Our first Indian ocean beach, but you can see why this is a surfing beach and not a lounging beach.

From the surf hotel we were heading to Ubud. To get around we used the bemo services. Bemos are mini buses that guys rent for the day and drive around picking up people on their route. It’s a very cheap and local way to get around. On one ride an old lady got on with a bucket full of fish parts that smelled terrible. Local flavor, mmmm.

Anyway, on our way to Ubud we stopped at an out of the way temple called Pura Rambut Siwi. This picture is actually from another temple on the way to Pura Rambut Siwi.

At the temple we got an almost private tour in English. There was no one around and the temple grounds were very nice. Above they are preparing for a ceremony that will take place in the evening. The next couple of pictures are from the temple grounds.

This is from the walk from the temple back to the main road. Bali is covered in rice fields. Since it is warm all year they can grow rice constantly so all the fields are in different stages.

Next we went to a very popular temple closer to Denpasar called Pura Tanah Lot. It was super touristy, crowded and expensive. All and all not much of an experience.

After Tanah Lot we hired a ride to our hotel in Ubud. On the way we passed this group. In Bali there are temples everywhere and each temple has many ceremonies and festivals. So there is always something going on.

The next few pictures are from our hotel in Ubud. It was a small family run place one street off of the main street in Ubud. They had eight rooms and we rented their best room for an amazingly cheap price.

The hotel from the breakfast deck.

Our room was very large with huge windows offering this view.

One drawback was our cute, but noisy neighbors.

This is the coolest room I’ve ever stayed in.

After our hectic few days in Java we really wanted to relax in Bali. Laurel was feeling so relaxed she forgot that she doesn’t like bananas.

Our room came with a nice breakfast, the star of which was these pancakes. They are green because they are made with a green leaf called pandan. There is banana, fresh coconut and honey inside. So good!

One morning we took a Balinese cooking class at Bumbu Bali. The class started by going to the local market to talk about the ingredients. The guy in the coat is the chef. The guy on the left was the other student, a Scottish guy who seems to just be hanging out in South Asia.

The chef made seven dishes for us and everything was amazing! The class also came with a little cookbook, but some of the important ingredients are impossible to get in Japan. Maybe we can make some of the stuff once we get back to the US.

There is also a Monkey Forest in Ubud well worth walking through.

On our way out of the monkey forest we were stopped by a lady selling sarongs. She was a nasty haggler and we didn’t like her very much so we were quite amused when this monkey stole her water and drank it.

It was really relaxing.

That night we had a reservation for Mozaic. It is rated by the Miele guide as the fifth best restaurant in Asia and it was pretty amazing. It was also very dark so the pictures didn’t come out, but Laurel will probably post some of them on her blog.

The next day we went for a rice field walk. It was really hot and much of the rice was currently in it’s most ugly stage having been recently harvested. It was still pretty though.

The black things are kites. We saw lots of kites. Our guess was that there isn’t really internet, TV, or video games available for the kids so they fly kites. It was yet another example of the charm of Bali.

That night we went to a Kecak performance (also called the monkey dance). The dance is performed to the sound of the men chanting “cak cak cak…”

After the Kecak there was a fire trance dance. This guy would kick around and run though a pile of burning coconut husks as a type of exorcism.

You see these offering everywhere. In fact it is hard not to step on them.

Our last stop in Bali was Jimbaran for a sea side seafood BBQ.

Fresh caught sea food grilled with sambal. So good!

Nice view too.

Bye Bali. We will miss you.

Java

From Singapore we flew to Yogyakarta. The plan was to meet a driver from the hotel at the gate, but we were at the international gate and the driver was at the domestic gate and as soon as we exited the gate another driver asked where we were going. After I explained our situation he declared that the driver from the hotel would not come until tomorrow and that he would happily drive us to the hotel for less than we were going to pay. So we waited for an hour and since we never found the hotel’s driver we hired the first guy, who had been sitting with us for the entire hour trying to convince us to hire him and generally chatting with us.

Driving in Indonesia is crazy. There seem to be some general rules, but they are easily dispensed with if it suits you.  The roads are shared by cars, buses, cargo trucks, many scooters, bikes, animals, and pedestrians, but our driver seemed to think that he owned the roads.

We stayed at the Manohara, which is a hotel that is actually on the grounds of Borobudur, a huge Buddhist temple. The advantage of staying here was that they let us go to the temple a half an hour before the grounds opened to the public. So we could watch the sunrise from the temple.

Be sure to check Laurel’s blog too. http://beyondboulder.wordpress.com/2009/09/02/golden-week-part-2-java/

This is before the sun rose. The light is from the flood lights.

The pyramid like structure is covered in these stupas. Each stupa, has or had a Buddha statue inside.

This is after the sun rose after we came back down.

The Manohara. A very nice hotel.

Pomelo tree out in front of the hotel.

It was salak (snake fruit) season. One bag for $0.20, and that’s the foreigner price.

Gamelan band at the sultan’s palace in downtown Yogyakarta.

Tasty drink! We were taken to a very touristy restaurant for lunch, but it was also very good.

The next few pictures are from a temple complex called Prambanan.

There was a lot of damage done by a large earthquake a few years ago so they are both trying to keep the still standing structures standing and rebuilding the others.

Inside.

We parted company with our driver in the evening. He was very helpful and very nice, but riding around town in his nice car made us feel disconnected. It felt like we were watching our trip on TV. So that night we headed out on our own. We had a wonderful padang dinner at a very local place. Great food, super cheap.

Main shopping street.

We ran through the morning market. I wish I would have taken more pictures and I wish we had more time, but we were leaving that morning on a minibus bound for Mt. Bromo.

The minibus was operated by a local tour company that we got hooked up with through our driver. The minibus ride was delayed multiple times by a couple of other selfish customers, but after 10-11 hours of crazy driving we made it.

View of the volcano from our hotel.

We found a cool little hotel on the edge of the crater, but we were only there for a few hours of sleep. At 3:30 we took a jeep ride to this lookout point above the crater of Mt. Bromo to watch the sunrise.

Popular thing to do.

Next we jumped back into the jeep and went down tot he active part of the volcano and took a peek in.

You could rent a little horse to take you to around, and as usual the salesmen we quite insistent.

There were a few other tourists in our little jeep and somehow we got paired with another group of extremely slow ,selfish people. They delayed us so much that we barely had time for a shower and had to take our breakfast to go, but it all worked out.

So, back in the minibus to head for another 10 hour drive to Bali. The views were nice.

I wish I would have gotten more pictures of the scooters becasue they seem to find ways to carry anthing on a scooter in Java.